


Decisions

by BunnyBean



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, First Love, Friendship, Happy Ending, Romance, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 47,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyBean/pseuds/BunnyBean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply doesn't take rejection well. Or maybe there is more to it than that. RyoSaku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> The most important thing to know going into this story is that it starts out in early December of Ryoma and Sakuno's third year (senior year) of high school. So at the start of this fic they're both 17, just about to turn 18. In case you don't know, Ryoma's birthday is Dec 24, Sakuno's is Jan 14, so they're both very, very close to being 18 in early December of their last year of high school.
> 
> The other thing you may want to know in advance is that I use the Japanese word miai in this fic. This is the Japanese equivalent to what most English speaking would refer to as an arranged marriage. The Japanese miai is not exactly a "forced" arranged marriage arrangement the way we would typically understand it though. It's more like matchmaking done by parents, grandparents or guardians. There's no particular obligation to get married, but there is a strong suggestion by the families for a marriage. Typically speaking either party may call a miai off at any time, but they do so at the expense of disappointing their families. The disapproval from the family at calling off a miai would have to do with each person's family ways and values, etc. Typically speaking young people being set up for a miai feel a strong obligation to please their parents/grandparents/guardians and at least meet with the suggested partner for them a few times and give it a real chance, so usually they don't shoot the idea down immediately. Since a miai is not exactly what most English speaking cultures would describe an arranged marriage as, I found it more appropriate to use the Japanese word since its description is simply more accurate. When I use the terms in this fic of either arranged marriage or miai I'm always going to be referring to the Japanese miai customs, not a forced arranged marriage situation.

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply doesn't take rejection well. Or maybe there is more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to  **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter One

* * *

It all started with an announcement.

"Your mother and I are making a request for you to have an arranged marriage meeting."

Echizen Ryoma looked up from his curry rice with a definitive grimace.

_It was always something with them._

His parents that is. First had been moving him around his whole life from Tokyo, to Los Angeles, to New York, back to Tokyo, back to New York, and finally back to Tokyo. Next had been pushing him into professional tennis as quickly as possible, which included traveling four times a year for the Grand Slam championships ever since he was 14. At least they'd left it at only forcing the big tournaments on him, and at least he hadn't gotten too famous yet, so he still had some semblance of a normal lifestyle. Make no mistake, he loved tennis and it was his life, but while still in school he was pretty sure he would have been content to play with his school team, and the All Japan team. His plan had been to wait until after high school graduation before pursuing going professional. Instead he'd spent the last few years going overseas for tournaments four times a year.

So much for his somewhat normal high school experience.

Those were just the big things...there were the little things too that came on a daily basis. Food he didn't like, naughty magazines thrust in his face by his old man, interviews for sports magazines, modeling here and there for some brand looking for a young tennis professional that was on the up and up.

Sometimes, he felt like the things they wanted him to do were endless.

_What about the things he wanted to do?_

He'd been really looking forward to turning eighteen in a few weeks. In Japan, he wasn't legally an adult until he was 20, but where he grew up in the United States, he would be legal at 18. After graduation, he planned on moving back to the USA for at least a couple of years. His hope being that it would mean getting out from under the heavy influence of his parents and making his own way in the world. Of course, so close to his birthday, they had to go and stick their noses into his business yet again.

On a  _huge_  issue.

Moving and tennis were a big deal, but  _marriage?_

That was  _more than_  a big deal. Marriage was forever and a day. Marriage was...

Ryoma shook his head, "Yada."

Echizen Nanjiro slapped his son on the back forcefully, "Who said we were giving you a choice?"

Ryoma wanted to bang his head into the table, on repeat, until it was all over. The only reason he didn't was out of respect to his mother who would absolutely not tolerate that at her dinner table. Especially not when they were having an important family discussion.

So now it was a miai. What the hell.

_How did this happen?_

"Ryoma, we have concerns. You're almost eighteen and you've had the means to support your own family ever since you were fourteen."

"I'm still not old enough to get married," Ryoma quickly interjected.

She heaved a sigh that indicated he was trying her patience before she continued, "That's only a technicality this close to your 18th birthday. The point is that most young men that have money at your age already have a serious girlfriend with a view to marriage after high school, or at the very least are  _dating._  You'll be old enough to get married in a few weeks and as far as we know, you've never even dated anybody."

Ryoma's eyes widened with realization.

Young he may be, but considering that he  _could_  get married as soon as he turned eighteen and that he still hadn't  _dated anybody_ was bothering his parents. Okay...he supposed that was  _kind-of valid_...but...to the point they felt they had to set up a marriage meeting?  _Seriously?_  It still seemed extreme, even for his parents.

Not that he couldn't see the point they were making, (as loose of a point as it was) but he'd never in a million years have thought they would care so much, not while he was still so young. Maybe after he was 25 or 26,  _maybe_...but...

He grabbed a potato out of his curry and shoved it in his mouth and chewed contemplatively for a minute. Something else was going on here. What was it?

Hmmmm.

 _This was his old man's fault._ He just knew it somehow. His mother was probably worried that if he didn't get a serious girlfriend or get married now that he'd end up being a playboy like his old man had been before he'd met his mom. His old man wouldn't care about that, but seeing as how he'd been trying to force him to show more than a passive interest in pretty girls for half of his life, or maybe even longer than that, (thankfully he couldn't remember exactly) his old man must have thought that a miai would be hilarious and thusly put forth no resistance to the idea.

The good thing about arranged marriage meetings were that you could go to the meetings a few times and then bow out gracefully. The bad thing was he'd be forced to waste practice time on some stupid girl that he probably would have zero interest in.

_In fact, she'd probably drive him crazy._

Almost all girls drove him crazy. He couldn't actually think of anybody besides Ryuzaki that didn't make him want earplugs and blinders after about 3 minutes in their company. Girls were so annoying. Even worse was that most of them were just downright silly. They were constantly primping themselves up with makeup, or brushing their hair, or looking in mirrors. They laughed way too much, or they were too forceful and overbearing. They never talked about anything interesting like tennis, or cats, or video games, it was always shopping, or movies, or gossip. They would also try way too hard to impress him with things that he considered to not be too difficult,  _such as cooking_ or some other mundane task that he figured any simpleton could accomplish _._

_Ugh. How could he get out of this as quickly as possible?_

"We haven't even told you the best part," His father said with a tad bit too much glee in his tone.

Ryoma felt his stomach drop with dread and shoved a cooked carrot and some rice in his mouth.

_It was just never a good thing when his old man sounded that happy about something to do with him._

His mother sent him a wide smile of approval as she said, "It's Ryuzaki Sakuno."

_Well..._

He wasn't expecting  _that._

Ryoma stopped chewing and gulped. He grabbed for his hot tea and took a swig of the warm liquid before he asked, "Sakuno's okay with this?"

* * *

At about the same time Ryuzaki Sakuno and her grandmother were similarly enjoying a nice meal as a family. Instead of being in their home though, the two of them were at a nice restaurant.

Sakuno knew that her dear grandmother had something important on her mind, since they only went out to eat on special occasions. She'd been racking her mind all evening on what it could be and still hadn't come up with anything. It wasn't anywhere near the anniversary of her parents' deaths. It wasn't anybody's birthday. It wasn't a holiday. Tennis season had been over for a couple of months.  _What could it be?_

As the two of them began to eat their fruit tarts for dessert, Ryuzaki Sumire finally dropped the bomb on her granddaughter's head.

"I'm getting old, Sakuno."

Of all the things she could have said! Utterly shocked, Sakuno dropped her spoon as her heart started beating furiously with anxiety, " _What?"_

"Don't make me say it again."

"Grandma, I don't understand!?  _Are you sick?"_

_Woah, was that really her voice coming out so high and squeaky?_

"Well, as you know my heart hasn't been good ever since you were in middle school," Her grandmother explained.

Well, yes...she had known that, but she'd kind of chosen not to think about it too much because it was depressing to think of losing her only family left. Besides, her grandmother had been doing just fine ever since the big scare they'd had years ago. She was still coaching at the middle school and led an active lifestyle. Sakuno hadn't thought for a moment her grandmother was thinking thoughts such as... _feeling old._

"Is it getting worse then?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm slowing down. I can tell."

"Don't worry Grandma, I'll take care of you," Sakuno sent a sweet smile across the table, hoping that would reassure her and end this bad topic.

Her grandmother shook her head at her, "Dear sweet girl. I don't want that fate for you at all. What I want is to see you safely settled."

Sakuno titled her head to the side and gave her grandmother a confused look. Settled. Safely  _settled._  Right...

_Just what did she mean by that?_

Her grandmother let out a chuckle of delight, "You have no idea what I mean, do you?"

Sakuno bit her lip for a moment, kind-of feeling embarrassed that she didn't understand. Then she shook her head and waited for the explanation she knew was coming.

"I want to set up an arranged marriage meeting for you."

For the second time that night, Sakuno burst out with a shocked, " _What?"_

"The truth is, I'm going to be forced to retire. It will probably be sooner rather than later. I won't have enough income to continue to take care of you, and I don't want you to have to work and possibly support me as well."

Sakuno looked down at the table as she was suddenly overcome with sorrowful emotions.

_Grandma sounded so sad and resigned. It was breaking her heart._

"I'm not saying you  _have_  to get married. I just want you to consider it seriously for my sake, okay? I'd really like to see you happily settled with a family so I'll know you won't be all alone when I'm gone."

Sakuno wiped a tear that escaped from her eye and sniffed, "Grandma... _please_  don't talk like that."

"Sakuno..."

Sakuno wiped another tear as it escaped from her other eye, and wondered if she'd need to excuse herself to go to the ladies' room.

"Please, just tell me you'll meet with him and try it. That's all I'm asking right now."

A miai. At her age? It was rare, but not unheard of. At least...she did understand her grandmother's reasons. She didn't like them, but if that was what Grandma wanted then...

Sakuno nodded her head as her heart broke, "Okay. I'll do it...for you."

_Why did it have to be like this?_

"Don't be so disheartened. I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised."

Sakuno's head shot up at that.  _Grandma sounded really happy about this._ Maybe she'd actually found a really great family? Maybe he was a surgeon, or an heir, or something really impressive? Did Grandma really have contacts like that?

"It's Echizen Ryoma."

Sakuno's face instantly crumpled before she burst into tears.

"I can't do it!" She expressed brokenly as she stood up, tossed her napkin down on the table and rushed to the bathroom.

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply doesn't take rejection well. Or maybe there is more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to  **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Two

* * *

Echizen Ryoma laid in bed the night his parents had informed him they were setting up an arranged marriage for him with Ryuzaki Sakuno thinking about this new change in his life.

_It really wasn't that bad._

Of all the girls he knew that he could have been stuck with, Ryuzaki was  _easily_  the best. For that matter, of all the girls he didn't already know that were very likely even worse than the ones he did know, Ryuzaki would probably still be the best.

She wasn't annoying. She never pranced in front of him to try to get his attention the way the other girls did. She didn't call him Ryoma-sama, which was  _a huge plus._  She enjoyed tennis and was always going to the matches, so if they got married she probably wouldn't have a problem traveling with him for his championships after graduation.

She was pretty in her own way, so he enjoyed looking at her, but she wouldn't be the burden that a really beautiful female would be in the way of other men vying for her attention all the time. The last thing he needed was to have some woman that he had to keep an eye on all the time to make sure she wasn't going to go off with some other guy. He'd always thought she was pretty though, and that was a requirement for a girlfriend, or wife, or whatever. He might not be Mr. Romance, but he had always thought that some level of attraction was important if he was going to start dating a girl. Ryuzaki was the only pretty girl he knew whose presence didn't make him irritated. Well, she was the only girl he knew that didn't make him irritated most of the time. There had been a few times when they were younger that she'd been slightly annoying, but as they'd gotten to know each other more over the years, she'd become accustomed to the things he liked and the things he didn't like and had treated him the way he wanted to be treated.

Well...now... _that was actually kind-of amazing._  Nobody else he knew had ever gotten to know him so well and changed for him. Now that he was thinking about it, her friendship and loyal support had come to be something he relied on in his life...

Honestly, he'd always  _kind-of_  liked her  _a little._  He just hadn't really thought about it much.

She was slightly younger than he was, which was also important. He never wanted a girl that was older than him, even if it was a few months he'd always felt like something like that would make him feel like less of a man.

She'd always put up with his teasing admirably. He had to admit to himself that he'd sought her company out on many occasion simply to see how cute she acted when he teased her.

She was a good cook, although he'd never been too concerned with that, figuring he could learn how to cook for himself as soon as he was out of his parents' house. Not having to bother with that because he was married, well there was another plus.

Best of all, Ryuzaki Sakuno wasn't pushy like most girls, and she respected his privacy. All in all, she would probably work out quite well as his wife.

In fact, now that he was seriously thinking about it...

It was a wonder he hadn't thought of it himself sooner! After all, he was a really smart guy and he had always prided himself on noticing good things. Maybe if he hadn't been so wrapped up in tennis something or other 24/7/365 he would have pursued her without his parents suggesting it. So all in all, the fact he hadn't yet was his parents' fault for sticking him in the pro tennis circuit when he was 14 and making him too busy trying to perfect his tennis to take the time to hang out with her more.  _So there, he would have chosen Ryuzaki anyway._

Arranged marriage? Naw...it would have happened on it's own without that. Sakuno was the only girl for him, it was so obvious he felt a little stupid for not doing something about it until now. What if he'd gone and moved back the USA and she'd gotten a boyfriend and he hadn't even heard about it in time to stop her? Well...he couldn't imagine them not staying in touch no matter where he lived since she'd always been great about emailing him when he'd been away...

He'd always taken the time to reply to her too, which should have made him realize sooner that he  _liked_  her. He hadn't even responded to most of the others that emailed him when he was away, or at the very least, not as frequently.

Ryuzaki Sakuno would be his wife. He didn't want to admit it to his interfering parents that they'd actually done something good for once, but...

He couldn't help but be kind of happy.

Satisfied with his future, he rolled over and contented himself with sleeping.

* * *

Sakuno and her grandmother made the drive home in silence after her outburst at the restaurant. She fidgeted her hands together worriedly the whole ride, wondering what her grandmother must be thinking. She must be  _so disappointed_  in her right now. It made her feel all sorts of unhappy and uncomfortable.

Not to mention she'd gone and had an outburst in public. Just double her embarrassment...seriously.

It wasn't that she never did embarrassing things like that...and she noted with a level of irritation that when she did cause a scene in public it was always somehow related to the cocky tennis prince. It was just that...she didn't usually cause scenes in public, especially not as she had gotten older. Or at least she'd thought she'd grown up and thus outgrown embarrassing outbursts in public. She'd thought in her ripe old age of almost eighteen that she had more control over her emotions, especially with regards to Ryoma-kun.

_What was Grandma thinking?_  Setting up a miai for her with  _Ryoma-kun_  of all people? Did she not know how much that would hurt her?! Oh and what was Ryoma-kun thinking about all this? She dreaded the very thought. Surely, he would be thinking she was some sort of pathetic female that couldn't get a guy to notice her without her family getting involved and pulling the obligation card. That was beyond embarrassing, especially since it was Ryoma-kun. Yet, at the same time she was happy it was Ryoma-kun, because he was so uninterested in these things that she could at least count on him to really not care about all of this. It wouldn't spread around the school like wildfire, thusly embarrassing her for the rest of her high school life.

_Small favors...she was grateful for them._

Really though...Ryoma-kun?  _Ryoma-kun?_ The one boy on earth that was...

As they entered through the front door, Sakuno's need to explain herself finally reached it's breaking point.

"It's...it's Ryoma-kun. I can't do it."

"What do you mean, dear?"

Ugh...she was still really upset about it. She planted her face in her hands and choked back a sob, "I..it's just...I can't do it if it's Ryoma-kun."

"Oh, but  _I thought you liked him?_ I talked with Nanjiro and Rinko  _first_  because you like him.  _Don't you like him?!"_

Sakuno shook her head back and forth, continuing to keep her face covered as she felt herself flush with embarrassment. She was really going to have to spell this out for her grandmother, wasn't she? She would never live this down. The words would be out, she would say them and she could never take them back after this. After this...her grandmother  _would know._

Of course she liked Ryoma-kun! She'd been as good as in love with him since the day she'd met him when she was twelve. That was why...

"I...I can't... _because I like him."_

Removing her hands from her face, Sakuno looked her grandmother in the eyes and with all seriousness and depression at her circumstances, she laid it all out, "I can't be with Ryoma-kun like that because I like him. I can't do it to him. I can't be happy if I know he was forced, or pushed, or I just...I can't. Anybody else, I could do it. I could do it for you. I can try, but I can't if it's Ryoma-kun. Please Grandma, you have to understand. I can't do this if it's Ryoma-kun."

Understanding dawned on the older woman's features.

So her affections for that cocky tennis prince were that deep. She was honestly a little bit surprised. She'd been betting on Sakuno being excited about a miai with Echizen Ryoma. They were old friends, he was a good looking boy, and he would easily be able to support Sakuno financially. In addition to that, the poor boy was so romantically challenged she'd thought it was going to be the best way to make her granddaughter's wishes with him come true. She'd never imagined that she wouldn't accept him if it wasn't...

_My, but what a pure heart her little granddaughter has._

She moved forward and wrapped her arms around Sakuno giving her a big hug, "I understand. I'm sorry, I should have talked with you before I talked with Nanjiro and Rinko. I wanted to surprise you because I thought you would be excited to be with Ryoma. I had no idea your affections for him ran so deep. Shall we call it all off then so you can try to pursue him?"

Sakuno shook her head as big silent tears poured out of her eyes, "Grandma..."

Oh, and now that her big secret was out, she had someone to talk with about it, but it made her heartbreak all the more real. She grabbed the arms surrounding her and added brokenly, "It's hopeless. Ryoma-kun and I..." She shook her head sadly, "It won't ever happen. We've had years, and he's the same as when we were twelve."

She rubbed her face against Sumire's sleeve to wipe her tears away and gave a little sniffle before she said with more bravery than she really felt, "If you have someone else you want me to try with, I'll try for you. I don't want you to be burdened with worrying about me if you're sick. I will try to settle."

Sumire gave a big sigh, "I'll call around. Echizen was of course, my first choice for you, not only because he can support you already, and you're close in age and well suited in my opinion, but also because he comes from a good family that are old friends of mine. If you don't want him though, then you don't want him. Some of the older boys might be available. I'll see if Tezuka, or Fuji, or Kawamura are still single. I think Fuji's family is putting him through med school, so that should be a secure future for you. Kawamura has the sushi shop. I'm not sure what Tezuka is up to, but he's such a smart young man, I'm sure it's something good."

_She was blabbering..._

Catching herself, Sumire stopped and gave Sakuno a soothing pat on her back. "Why don't you go ahead and go to bed. I'll take care of everything, okay? Don't worry about Ryoma."

Sakuno gave a nod and headed up to her room. Flopping face down on her pillow she bawled her eyes out like she'd never bawled before.

It was official... _her life was over._

* * *

Early the next morning Ryuzaki Sumire picked up her telephone and dialed the Echizen house.

"Ah! Old hag! Good morning! The young man is in for the miai. Pretty soon, we'll be family! HAHAHAHA," Echizen Nanjiro greeted his old coach with enthusiasm.

"He is?"

As Nanjiro waxed enthusiastic for a few minutes about how great it was that Ryoma hadn't resisted as soon as he'd found out it was Sakuno, Sumire was lost in her thoughts. She was actually a little surprised that Ryoma hadn't given his parents some resistance. Which meant, he either liked Sakuno at least a little bit, as she'd suspected from the day the two had met, or...he really didn't care about these things, as his parents suspected. It made her bad news all the worse to deliver. With a heavy heart she informed her old friend of the current situation, "Nanjiro...Sakuno said no."

"Oh. Well, I was a little worried about that. I should have known it was too good to be true. That kid of mine is such a brick wall, and Sakuno-chan knows him well enough to know what she'd be getting into. He's never going to get married now, you know that right? Rinko is going to be devastated. Sakuno-chan was our only hope! I mean really, what girl would want him, am I right?"

"Well, we all thought they would make a good match, and I still think they would, but it's Sakuno's life. There's a limit to how much I'm willing to push her on this."

"I understand. I want little Sakuno-chan to be happy too. I was hoping we would be good enough, but..." Nanjiro let out a bit of a sigh, "Well, let us know if she changes her mind. You know Rinko and I would love to have her be part of our family officially, but don't worry old lady, we'll look after her as if she was our own no matter what."

Sumire laughed, "Well, thanks for that."

"What are old friends for, right?"

"Right."

"Besides, we both love little Sakuno-chan. I have a feeling the young man has a bit of a soft spot for her as well, well...in his own way that is. But what can we do? If she doesn't want him, she doesn't want him. I'd better go tell Ryoma before he gets some idea in his head that it's as good as done and says something thoughtless to Sakuno-chan or their classmates."

Sumire laughed again, "He would do that. That's probably for the best."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

As Echizen Nanjiro turned his phone off, he stared hard at it for a few minutes in contemplative silence. With a frown, he made his way upstairs to his son's room.

Thumping on the door he called through, "Ne...Seishounen! The old hag says Sakuno-chan doesn't want you, so forget about the miai for now. Try to get a girlfriend before we get asked again if you don't want us to set you up with another girl!"

After delivering his message he quickly left and made his way up to the temple tennis court. He suddenly had the urge smash a few tennis balls so hard they would stick into the court's dirt surface. He was pretty sure his brat liked the Ryuzaki girl, but before it even started, he'd managed to blow it.

Ryoma woke with a start at his old man's message.

_Ryuzaki didn't want him?_

What the hell?

_Was he not good enough?_

Did she find some other guy she liked more than him? Did he make more money? Was he smarter? Was he older? Was he...gulp...better at tennis?

No...that last one at least wasn't possible. The only person Ryuzaki knew that was better than him at tennis was his old man, and his old man wasn't exactly available.

Just who did she think she was? Setting up an arranged marriage and then deciding she didn't want him?

_Absolutely not acceptable._

Especially since he'd just figured out she would be perfect for him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging Grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply doesn't take rejection well. Or maybe there is more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Three

* * *

On Monday morning, Ryuzaki Sakuno had the surprise of her life.

Waking up early as was her custom, she got dressed, ate breakfast, and headed out in the cool, crisp winter air on her usual walk towards her high school. High school was almost over and she could barely believe it. When had she gotten so old? Where had the time gone? The serious talks she'd had with her grandmother that weekend about marriage got her thinking seriously about her future more than ever.

She'd been kind-of putting thinking about her future off, simply because she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. Career? She had no idea. Marriage? Well, it was true that like most girls she had a dream about falling in love, getting married to a real prince and living happily ever after. She'd loved Ryoma-kun for years, so she'd thought about what it would be like to be with him, but...marriage was something she viewed as _far off._ It was definitely on her list of things she wanted for her future, just...maybe not yet. Still, despite _wanting_ romance, and marriage...here she was, roughly a month before turning eighteen, _and hadn't even had a boyfriend yet._

In fact, her love life was so pathetic that her grandmother was getting involved and trying to set her up with someone for an arranged marriage.

And oh...now that she'd gone and turned down Ryoma-kun, who would she end up with?

Ryoma-kun, for all intents and purposes, _would be_ her first choice. Her prince. Her tennis prince. She could watch him forever. He never bored her, he never failed to impress her. He was very loyal, and had always been a perfect gentleman to her.

But...he was also the root of her problem. She'd been so in love with him the past six years, she hadn't tried to date other boys. She'd been hoping so furiously that Ryoma-kun would notice her someday that she hadn't even so much as _looked_ at other boys. A few boys had confessed to her over the years, but she'd always politely turned them down, telling them her heart was already with someone else. Now, she was kind-of feeling like maybe she shouldn't have been so hasty to dismiss them.

After all, if she had a boyfriend right now, or maybe even if she'd at least had one or two in the past, Grandma wouldn't be so worried about her ending up alone. If she had _a serious boyfriend_ right now, maybe she would actually happily be planning on being a young bride and know exactly what she was going to do with her life. Instead, just before she turns eighteen her grandmother says she wants to set her up for a miai!? Of all the things _she didn't_ think she would ever deal with in her life, a miai was in the top five, maybe even the top three.

Of course, it wasn't exactly a complete obligation. Even if Grandma found someone for her to consider seriously, if she felt like it wouldn't work out, she could always back out of it. Or who knew? Maybe the guy would back out of it. Sakuno shivered at the thought of Tezuka-senpai or Fuji-senpai as Grandma had mentioned the other night. Kawamura-senpai might be okay, he was warm and friendly, and working in the sushi shop with him would probably be a simple and content life.

Still, thinking of marrying _any_ of the boys that had been on the tennis team with Ryoma-kun was...

Well, it was...

She yanked on a bare thin tree branch that was hanging down over the sidewalk and watched in satisfaction as it snapped back into place when she let it go. It sprayed droplets of water into the air that caught the morning sunbeams as they scattered around her. She shivered slightly at the cool touch of the few drops that hit her exposed flesh on her face and hands.

It was rather cold that morning. Perhaps she should have brought some gloves? She lamented not having pockets in her school uniform like some of the schools did, because then at least she could stuff her hands into her pockets to warm up.

Well...whatever. It wasn't _that_ cold. Winter in Tokyo was approaching, but it wasn't exactly glove wearing weather just yet. She probably wouldn't even be noticing if she hadn't been horsing around with bare wet tree branches spraying freezing cold droplets of water at her.

It was just that she needed to do something to vent out...

Her thoughts were startled as her right hand was suddenly grabbed from behind.

_OH NO._

As she turned towards her attacker, she was met with warm hazel eyes staring down at her. Feeling instant relief, an involuntary smile broke out over her soft features.

"Good morning Ryoma-kun," She greeted.

"Sakuno," Ryoma greeted back.

Sakuno raised both eyebrows at his familiar address and then looked down pointedly at the hand Ryoma was still holding.

_Weird._

"Why is Ryoma-kun holding my hand?" She asked.

He stopped walking then, and with a tug on their joined hands, jerked her to a stop as well. Closing the small distance between them he dropped his face down so it was a scant inch away from hers, and said lowly, "I hear you don't want to marry me."

_He didn't!_

He didn't just...just...he didn't just say that! Sakuno flushed red and yanked her hand free while chastising, "Ryoma-kun!"

"What? You didn't think I would hear about it? First my parents are telling me we're going to be planning a wedding, and the next morning my old man says you don't want me."

Sakuno took a step back, putting some distance between them and said, "I'm sorry Ryoma-kun. You know I didn't even know Grandma had talked to your parents until it was too late. I-"

"Hey," He interrupted.

Sakuno stopped her explanations and blinked up at him wondering why he cut off her speech.

He stepped forward, closing the distance between them again and said boldly, "Don't think you can get out of it so easily."

"W-w-wha-what?" She sputtered back, completely shocked at the way he was talking to her.

He grabbed her left hand then and wrapped it up between both of his hands. She felt his body heat warming her up from her fingertips where he was touching her and it spread through her like a large gulp of tea that was at that scalding temperature of too hot to be drinking yet. " _We're getting married,"_ He calmly informed her quite matter of factly.

"No! We're not!" Sakuno denied quickly as her thoughts spun around. _What exactly was happening here?_

Ryoma gave her a suspicious look then, and kept a fast hold on her hand that she was trying to tug free, "Do you have someone else?"

Sakuno's eyes widened, "No! I don't! It's not that."

"So why won't you marry me?"

Was this some kind of game he thought he was playing? She did know that Ryoma-kun liked to tease her on occasion, and over the years she had played along, finding it diverting in the good way that comes from having the attention of the person holding your affections. Right now though? This whole miai - not getting out of it - why won't you marry me teasing? It was way over the line. _She was completely not amused._

"Ryoma-kun, don't be ridiculous."

His mouth quirked up on the side as he said, "I have enough money, from tennis already. We could get a house in the US as soon as I turn eighteen, tour the world on the ATP for a few years, have some kids, move into the temple here or something like that after I retire."

Sakuno's jaw dropped open in surprise. Were her ears deceiving her or was he trying to talk her into this? Did _The Echizen Ryoma_ seriously just lay out a life plan for them to her? _He'd really seriously thought about it, hadn't he?_

But why was he saying these things _now?_ He'd had almost six years to make a move!

Oh, but then...

He hadn't actually just said anything about _liking_ her. _She couldn't get wrapped up in this._ Whatever _it_ was...

Ryoma-kun was not supposed to be fighting her about this! He was supposed to be relieved that he wasn't being pushed into a miai and he was supposed to forget all about it. She certainly had never expected that he would talk about it with her!

Sakuno shook her head and pulled her hand down trying to escape Ryoma's grasp with a bit more vigour, "It's not happening, Ryoma-kun. I'm sorry you got the wrong idea."

"There's nothing wrong with this idea. Aren't you listening to me?" He quickly responded back.

Sakuno felt like she wanted to cry tears of frustration. She would never marry him unless he was completely crazy in love with her! Didn't he get it? _He was so dense sometimes!_

"I said _no_ , Ryoma-kun!"

His eyes darkened as he said lowly, " _Why_ don't you want to marry me?"

Sakuno braced her feet apart and pulled her hand down again with all her might. He effortlessly held her in place and squeezed her hand back in response.

_When did he get so strong?_

Drops gathered at the corners of her eyes, waiting to be released as she said heatedly, "I just don't want to, okay?"

This was so unreal! Sure Ryoma-kun and her had become more and more comfortable with each other and developed a good friendship over the last six years, but they'd never had a fight before. He'd never talked with her this much before, let alone so frankly, even when they'd spent whole days together. He'd never tried to talk her into anything before, and he'd _certainly never_ addressed her by her given name before.

_Honestly! What did he care if she didn't want to marry him?_

Not like that was the truth anyway, but it wasn't like she was going to flat out tell him she wasn't going to marry him in an arranged marriage because she was in love with him!

How had her life ended up like this? Really? How?

"No. It's not okay."

Sakuno stopped struggling and looked up at him once again with surprised eyes. She blinked. No...he was still there...this wasn't a weird dream.

"I want to marry you."

Sakuno was pretty sure she blacked out there for a few seconds. Had she seriously just heard Echizen Ryoma say that he _wanted_ to marry her? _Her?_ With Ryoma-kun... _married?_ Years ago, when she'd first fallen in love with him and had high hopes, she'd dreamed of something like this. That had been when she was still young though. As the two of them had grown older, and older, and older still...and Ryoma-kun had continued to show no more than a passive interest in her, she'd given up. The last thing she thought she'd ever hear him say to her was that _he wanted to marry her._

There was just no way he meant that. _If he really liked her...surely something would have happened before now._ Something else must be...

Really. Just wait a minute. Why was he making such a big deal out of this _now?_ Honestly, she was more than just a little bit shocked! She felt like it wasn't like him to even think about these types of things, let alone talk about them. Let alone talk about them with _a girl._ Though, granted, if he was going to talk about something with a girl that wasn't part of his family, and the subject matter wasn't tennis, it would probably be her, since she was probably the closest female to him that he wasn't related to, but still...

What a _weird_ week this was becoming...

The worst of it was that the part of her that wasn't shocked and flabbergasted, was kind-of busy hyperventilating with excitement at his words. She didn't know if she should be happy or worried that even though she knew better there was this traitorous part of her that was giddily exclaiming over and over in her mind: _Ryoma-kun wants to marry me!_

Then he went and opened his mouth again.

"You're the only girl that doesn't annoy me to death, and you're pretty enough. I thought about it. It has to be you, so we're getting married. I don't care what my parents or the coach says, _I'm telling you,_ I'm not letting you out of this miai."

Sakuno's jaw dropped.

She knew it. She just knew it, damn it.

That this was too good to be true. _The only girl that doesn't annoy him? Pretty enough?_ What the _hell_ kind of a marriage proposal was that? Her eyes narrowed warningly, "Ryoma-kun. I said no. _I meant it._ I'm _not_ going to marry you!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to!"

He shifted his weight and looked uncomfortable for a second, "Am I not good enough?"

His question gave Sakuno pause, and she suddenly felt bad for rejecting him so bluntly. When all was said and done neither of them had any dating experience. Maybe she was hurting his feelings a little bit, being so hostile about this with him. Take everything else away, and he was still her friend. He deserved better than this from her, didn't he?

"It's not that," She said softly.

"So what is it? You don't like me? You don't think I look good?"

Sakuno blushed. Leave it to Ryoma-kun to be so blunt about things like this! She shook her head, "It's nothing like that."

"So...you don't want to be married to a professional tennis player then?"

Sakuno shook her head quickly that time, "Ryoma-kun, your tennis is amazing and I love watching you play. _I will always support you."_

"So then what is it? Why don't you want to marry me?"

Sakuno's face heated up once again at his forward questions.

_Why couldn't he just let it go?_

"It's...it's a secret."

Ryoma's eyes dropped into an irritated scowl at that. He shook her hand between his hands and said in a tone that conveyed he was completely unimpressed, "A secret."

A long pause stretched between them and then he added, "Not good enough, Sakuno. If you want out of this miai... _I at least deserve a reason."_

_Was he really going to continue to address her by her given name like that?_ That was probably going to become a big problem, really quickly. She should really yell at him about it. If they weren't talking about a much more serious issue, she would have, but the thing was...

Sakuno shifted her weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. He was really putting her on the spot, and insisting on this, and she just didn't know what to do with him! She didn't even know he could act this way! Well...granted, she'd seen him give issuing a tennis challenge his dogged determination and persistence before, but she never fathomed that it could reach into any other part of his life.

_As always, Ryoma-kun was full of surprises._

She nervously whirled her one long braid around with her right hand that was the one free from Ryoma's hold and said, "It's just...I just don't want to marry you under these circumstances, okay? Please Ryoma-kun, just forget that we had an arranged marriage? _Please?"_

Ryoma being the smart man that he is zeroed in on the important tell in her speech, "So what circumstances _would_ you marry me under?"

Sakuno's jaw dropped yet again with surprise, "Ryoma-kun!"

He stared blankly at her, keeping a firm grasp on her left hand, waiting for her to reply despite her protests.

_He was so stubborn! Who could fight against it?_

Giving a huff of frustration Sakuno confessed, "Well, think about it. Any girl would marry any guy if she was in love with him, right?"

Sharp as usual Ryoma said, "So all I have to do is make you love me?"

"Ryoma-kun! You make it sound so simple!"

"It is simple. So, if you love me, you'll marry me?"

Sakuno stomped her foot and tried once again to jerk her left hand free, "I didn't say that!"

"Yes you did. You just said that."

"You're twisting my words."

"I don't think so," Ryoma tugged her forward by pulling her hand he was still holding hostage in close to his body.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to make you love me, and then we're getting married."

Sakuno looked up at Ryoma with an incredulous look, "Don't joke with me."

"I would never joke about getting married."

Sakuno's heart thumped in response, "Grandma is setting up a miai with someone else."

"Tell her no. You will be _my bride,_ Sakuno."

Sakuno flushed thoroughly at his words. Did he really just say that? So seriously? The fight left Sakuno's body then. Mentally exhausted, she dropped her head against his chest and marveled at how he quickly wrapped his arms around her smaller frame, comforting her.

_This was just so..._

"Ryoma-kun..."

"Hn."

_Unacceptable._

"I said no." With that, she pushed away from him with all the force in her little body and took off sprinting down the street towards their school, her long braids flying out behind her.

Ryoma stood there in shock for a minute watching the young woman that was in his arms a moment ago tear down the street at her full speed. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he watched her and mused to himself that it was surprising that she hadn't tripped over yet. She was clumsy like that after all. He always had to take care of her. His Sakuno...

Wait a minute. She was running away from him after he told her he wanted to marry her. That hadn't been part of the plan!

_What the hell?_

Why couldn't she just marry him? Did she really dislike him that much? She said it wasn't that, right? So what was her problem?


	4. Chapter Four

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Four

* * *

Echizen Ryoma didn't get it.

He seriously didn't get it at all.

He was a good looking guy, right? All those girls weren't always trying to get his attention, and give him chocolates and bentos, and all sorts of other things for nothing, were they?

He was a cool guy, right? He was smart, he was good at sports, he knew a good joke when he heard one. He didn't have any weird or annoying habits that he knew of. He already had a steady source of income and a whole temple grounds and house in Tokyo to inherit someday.

As far as the wedding market went, he was quite a catch, _right?_

So why in the world wouldn't Ryuzaki Sakuno agree to marry him? Why was she so against their miai?

At first, when his old man had told him the miai was off, he had been shocked and wondered if it was because he wasn't good enough or if it was because she liked someone else. After thinking about it, he'd figured that probably wasn't the problem.

Sakuno probably just didn't want to force him into getting married. She was cool like that. That was why he liked her. So all he needed to do was make it clear to her that he was good with this whole arranged marriage thing and then that would be that. She'd agree to marry him and they would get married. Problem solved.

_Wrong._

After confronting her on the subject, he was more confused than ever. He'd expected her to be as happy about marrying him as he was to marry her. Seeing as how he was going to take care of her and solve all her problems, he was actually expecting her to be happier about it than he was, after he told her he wanted to marry her that is.

Instead, she'd gone from confused, to angry, to kind-of mean, then she'd been all nice before she'd finally shoved him away and ran off.

 _What was that supposed to mean?_ Were they getting married or what? Did she really not understand that he was _serious_ about marrying her?

Sakuno was going to get married if old Coach Ryuzaki had anything to say about it. His parents had pretty much laid it all out for him the other night after telling him that it was Sakuno they were arranging for him to marry.

The Coach wanted Sakuno married before she got too old to take care of her anymore. She wanted her to be safely settled down so that she wouldn't become a burden to her. At least, that's what his parents had said. It had sounded pretty serious to him. Which was fine. He had plenty of money to take care of the both of them. Once he went pro full time, he'd have more than enough money to take care of Sakuno _and_ the Coach.

So the girl was going to get married and it would be soon. He had no doubt that with her yielding to the happiness of others personality that she would settle down with someone, maybe as early as right after her birthday next month.

She wasn't going to be able to find anybody better than him, was she? She had to get married soon, didn't she? So _why_ did she still say no?

He was really shocked that she'd fought him at all on the subject. She'd never resisted anything he'd said before. Granted, they'd never talked about a super serious subject like marriage in the almost six years they'd know each other either.

Still...

Something in his gut was telling him that Sakuno _would_ go so far as to get married if Coach Ryuzaki wanted her to. So why couldn't it be him?

_If she was going to get married, he'd be damned if she married anybody except him._

So he supposed that meant...

Game. On.

Oh...it was on. _It was so on._

_He would make Sakuno love him and marry him if it was the last thing he did._

Even if he had no idea how to go about doing that.

* * *

Ryuzaki Sakuno didn't know what to think.

Had her world flipped over on it's head this weekend? First Grandma is wanting to set up a miai for her. Next thing she knows Ryoma-kun is insisting that they get married, no matter how many times she says no. What was next? Tomo-chan was going to tell her something shocking like that she'd really hated her all her life? Horio-kun was going to say he was a n00b at tennis that had zero years of experience? Kachiro-kun and Katsuo-kun were going to start fighting all the time like Kaidoh-senpai and Momo-senpai used to?

She watched Ryoma warily as he entered their classroom a few minutes after she'd arrived, fearful that he would try to talk to her again. Thankfully, he took his seat that was only a few desks away from her and proceeded into his usual routine of laying his head on his desk to rest before their first morning lessons would begin.

Sakuno got out her cell phone and sent a quick text message to Tomoka.

_Tomo-chan...I need to talk to you about something important at lunch. Let's meet up right after the bell outside my classroom._

As she put her phone away, the bell rang and roll call began.

Hours later as the lunch bell rang, Sakuno grabbed her wallet and her phone and shot to her feet. Making a beeline for the doorway, she was stopped in her tracks by Ryoma calling out to her.

"Oi, Sakuno!"

Sakuno spun around in shock.

_Ryoma-kun hadn't just yelled to her across the classroom by her given name._

Their classmates all froze in their positions, even their teacher looked up in surprise. Goodness, it was suddenly so silent in their classroom one could have heard a pin drop.

Well you see, it was just that... _Echizen Ryoma_ simply _doesn't yell across the room_ and he _never_ addresses _anybody_ by their _given_ name.

Sakuno could feel the heavy stares of everyone as Ryoma made his way across the room to catch up to her. Stopping a foot away from where she stood he said casually, "Let's have lunch together today."

Sakuno blinked. Oh...he was still there and this was really happening. She blinked again for good measure. Yup...still there. _This was really happening._

"O...kay," She finally said slowly.

He stepped forward and slung an arm over her shoulders as he turned her back around towards the doorway and led the way out of the classroom.

Sakuno heard the noise of her classmates discussing the event as they entered the hallway and bemoaned internally the questions she would be bombarded with later.

Nobody would ask Ryoma-kun anything because they knew better than to ask the tennis prince personal questions. Not only did one receive a blank stare, but they never got anything out of him. Those that persisted became victims of his sharp wit. He could make you cry if he wanted to make fun of you. Needless to say, trying to get information not being offered out of Echizen Ryoma was more painful than pulling teeth.

 _She_ on the other hand was easy pickings. She would have no peace until the whole school was up in their business. How was she ever going to keep this silly miai business a secret from the whole school now?

"Ryoma-kun...what are you doing?" She asked lowly as they got a few feet away from the door.

"I just told you," He said.

She bit her lip to keep herself from screaming at him. Did he seriously not know what a stir he'd just created by calling out to her like that and then touching her in front of everybody!?

For that matter, _he was still touching her._ Every person in the hallway was staring at them!

"Sakuno!" Tomoka called as she ran up to them from behind. Quickly matching her pace with the couple she asked worriedly, "Is everything okay? Ryoma-sama, is Sakuno hurt? Are you taking her to the nurse's office?"

These being the naturally expected questions from Tomoka considering that like the rest of their schoolmates, she couldn't conceive of Echizen Ryoma touching anybody unless it was to assist them because they were hurt.

Sakuno turned her head away from the tennis prince to her friend that was now walking on her other side, "Tomo-chan. I'm okay. Ryoma-kun wanted to have lunch with us today."

Tomoka was surprised at her best friend's news, but squealed with delight all the same, "Lunch with Ryoma-sama! Awesome!"

Sakuno smiled while Ryoma scoffed under his breath.

"Wait a minute! I thought you wanted to talk-"

"SHHH!" Sakuno hissed abruptly.

Both of her walking companions gave her startled looks.

Embarrassed, she quickly covered it up, "Ah...Tomo-chan I just wanted to remind you that we're supposed to go to the music store after school today."

Her best friend forever didn't miss a beat and said, "Oh right! I did almost forget about that! I'm so glad you reminded me!"

Bless Tomo-chan for catching on to her ploy to keep the 'needing to have girl talk' away from Ryoma-kun so quickly.

They reached the lunchroom and Ryoma looked over Sakuno's head down at Tomoka, "Osakada-san, I want to have lunch alone today with Sakuno."

Tomoka's eyes widened at his words and she took a big step back. She sent a curious look Sakuno's way, who only gave the slightest shake of her head. Tomoka smiled up at Ryoma, "No problem, Ryoma-sama. I was supposed to share some notes with one of the girls for our next lesson anyway, so I'll head back to my class."

Sakuno desperately wanted to stop her, but Tomoka had ran off before she even had the chance to express herself. Ryoma told Sakuno to stay put for a minute as he braved the line and bought the two of them a couple of lunch breads.

As he left the lunchroom, he grabbed Sakuno's hand and pulled her outside. They walked around for a few minutes, hit up a vending machine for a couple of Pontas and then made their way over to the tennis courts. Sitting down on a bench by the courts, he set the food down between the two of them. He flipped open the tab on the grape Ponta and took a sip before he picked up one of the packaged breads.

Sakuno shivered a bit at the coldness from the bench as she sat down. Ryoma handed her the other bread and she thanked him. The two ate in silence for a few minutes.

About half way through his bread, Ryoma said, "I don't know how this works. Are you...my girlfriend now?"

Sakuno choked for a moment and then took a frantic swig from her cherry Ponta to wash her food down.

"Ryoma-kun-" She began warningly.

He locked eyes with her then, effectively stopping the speech she was about to launch into, "Don't I at least get a chance?"

Sakuno closed her eyes for a moment to break eye contact with him. A cool breeze hit them and she shivered again as the cold air whipped through her clothes.

_On second thought, it was cold outside today! Maybe winter had completely arrived._

Ryoma moved their cans of soda to the side and closed the distance between them on the bench, "You look cold."

She nodded and scooted a little closer to him as well. Part of her wanted to simply cuddle into his warmth, especially since it seemed he was offering.

_Oh, she would never get used to him acting like this._

Not that he hadn't always been a complete gentleman. However, before this morning's outrageous conversation he would have just escorted her back inside where it was warm, not _offered sharing body heat._

She didn't know if she should faint, or swoon, _or run for the hills._

"My parents said the coach wants to see you settled. If it's not me, then it's going to be someone, right?"

Sakuno wanted to shut him off like she could with a television or a radio. She didn't want to hear him talk about her love life so matter of factly. She didn't want to discuss her love life with Ryoma-kun at all actually! There was something _so wrong_ about hearing these things from him. Anybody else would be bad enough, but hearing it from Ryoma-kun was like living in her worst nightmare.

He knew too much and he was going to use that knowledge against her apparently. She cursed the day her grandmother and his father met, sealing the fates of their families being long time friends. Anybody else wouldn't have had such inside information on her family circumstances.

What were Auntie and Uncle thinking sharing it all with Ryoma-kun? _Were they trying to embarrass her for the rest of her life?_

Ryoma nudged her and she realized she hadn't answered his question yet.

With a grievous sigh into her lunch bread she muttered begrudgingly, "Probably."

He turned to look at her, and she tilted her head up to meet his eyes as he smirked down at her and said, "You know me best."

Sakuno rolled her eyes and looked away from him towards the tennis courts. Of course she knew him best of all the boys she knew. She easily spent twice the amount of time with him as she did with any other boys. That wasn't the point of a miai though, and he knew that just as much as she did. She didn't see his point.

He jabbed her in the side with his elbow none too gently and said, "Take this seriously."

She glared at the tennis court at his jab and ranted, " _I did,_ Ryoma-kun, and _I said no._ This morning, I said no _a few times._ I don't know how else to tell you no so that you understand that _I mean no._ It's not going to work, so it's not going to happen."

He scoffed at her heated speech and quickly rebutted, "You like me the best. Otherwise we wouldn't have stayed together all these years."

Sakuno stood up and spun on her heel to face him. Looking down at him with fire in her eyes as he sat there on the bench, giving her a challenging look as if daring her to call him a liar.

"That's completely besides the point!"

Ryoma shook his head, "Mada mada dane, Sakuno."

She leaned over him and said lowly, "Please understand me. I can't marry you!"

Before she had the opportunity to turn and run away from him again, Ryoma grabbed her wrist and yanked her down into his lap. She made a slight protesting sound as she floundered onto him and finally grabbed at his shoulders to regain her balance. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pinning her in his lap and said into her ear, "I don't believe you."

"That is Ryoma-kun's problem," She muttered back sourly.

What could she do to get him to stop it already?

"So who do you want to marry?" He asked.

Sakuno deflated at his question, "I don't know. Someone I don't know."

Ryoma muttered something under his breath in English and then repeated blandly, "Someone you don't know."

Sakuno wilted as the reality of her situation started to hit her. It was one thing to talk about things with her grandmother hypothetically and make promises when there was no face or name attached to a potential marriage mate. It was another thing to seriously consider getting married anytime soon, especially to some unknown person. For all she knew she could end up in a bad situation. It could be worse than someone she already knew, but all the boys she already knew...well, it just couldn't work...could it? As impossible as marrying Ryoma-kun would be, marrying any of their previous senpai was just as bad in another way. Her thoughts quickly travelling from frustrated to depressed, she unconsciously dropped her head onto Ryoma's shoulder and let out a big sigh.

"I don't want to get married," She finally whispered.

"At all?" Ryoma asked.

She nodded into his neck in answer, moving Ryoma's school uniform coat up and down against her cheek.

"Ever?" He asked.

She let out a small chuckle as she shook her head. "Well, _of course I want to someday,_ just not right now. Ryoma-kun knows, I haven't even dated before. Getting married..." She trailed off, unsure how to put into words how she felt about it.

"Me too," He said, surprising her.

"You don't want to get married?" She asked.

He gave a huff of amusement, his chest bouncing against Sakuno's body moving her away slightly for a second. "I never thought about it until my parents told me about the miai."

Sakuno giggled, "This doesn't surprise me. Ryoma-kun only thinks about tennis!"

Ryoma's eyes looked away from the deserted dewy tennis courts and shifted to the side to look down at the side of her face as a wry smirk ghosted across his lips, "Un."

Sakuno giggled some more, moving her face into his chest she took a deep breath to stop giggling. Getting serious for a moment she said lightly, "Thank you for cheering me up. Ryoma-kun is a good friend."

His chest heaved with a deep breath and he tugged her outer leg closer to him, forcing her whole body to shift into his chest. Her side moved into him so that there was no distance remaining, "I want to take care of you."

She wrapped the arm closest to him around the back of his shoulders then and said with a confidence that she didn't feel she had, "I'll be okay."

With that, she pushed down on his shoulders and moved off of his lap, standing once again above him. Ryoma quickly stood up as well. As she turned back towards their school building to get inside before the bell rang his hand shot out and grabbed hers. Sakuno twisted her upper body around to look back at him, her head tilted to the side in confusion.

"I'm not giving up, Sakuno."

Her gasp was lost in the sound of the warning bell that lunch was almost over. Ryoma tugged her towards him and wrapped her up in a tight hug. She hugged back for a second as a tear escaped her eye, her heart breaking with want of something that she felt was really not truly hers, but rather a product of circumstance. Then she took a large step back and pushed against his chest hard, effectively putting him off balance so that he was forced to step away so that he didn't fall down. Wiping the tears now collected in her eyes off her face, Sakuno spun on her heel and dashed back into the school building.

* * *


	5. Chapter Five

Decisions

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Five

* * *

After school, Tomoka met up with Sakuno at her shoe locker.

"Sakuno!" Tomoka excitedly greeted her friend as she practically flew into the lockers in the column next to Sakuno's.

"Hi Tomo-chan," Sakuno greeted back distractedly as she deposited her school slippers into her locker to change back into the next day.

"Tell me all about Ryoma-sama at lunch!" Tomoka said as Sakuno swung her locker door shut.

Sakuno looked at her locker door for a moment and then turned her head to the side, keeping her hand grasping onto the locker's handle, "Tomo-chan...I don't know what to do."

Tomoka's eyebrows raised with interest. Grabbing Sakuno's hand off the locker she began to drag her friend out of the school building and then quickly off of the school campus grounds.

Stopping in at their favorite cafe that the two would frequent when they went out after school, they greeted a few of their other schoolmates that were also there to grab a snack and a drink. Sitting down at a table, the girls quickly scanned through the menu to make their selections. After ordering, Tomoka gave Sakuno her full attention, "So...tell me all about it! What happened?"

"Grandma set up a miai."

"She didn't!" Tomoka exclaimed, clearly scandalized.

Sakuno shrugged uncomfortably. She was still not used to this subject being part of her life or something that she had to consider seriously.

"So did you tell her no?" Tomoka asked.

Sakuno shook her head slowly.

Tomoka tapped the table with her hand rapidly as she said, "But what about Ryoma-sama? Aren't you sad?"

Sakuno's eyes shifted to the side and she glanced outside the cafe window for a moment. She watched as a happy couple outside walked past them hand in hand, the girl excitedly pointing out something across the street to her boyfriend. She sighed. _That would never be her._

Looking back at her best friend she said, "Grandma set it up with Ryoma-kun."

Tomoka's fist pounded down on the table hard as she rose to her feet exclaiming loudly with marked disbelief in her tone, "Sakuno has a miai with Ryoma-sama?"

All the eyes in the cafe shifted to them then and Sakuno covered her face with her hands moaning, "Tomo-chaaaan! Not so loud!"

Collecting herself, Tomoka sat back in her seat and then repeated herself, though not quite so loudly, "You have a miai with Ryoma-sama?"

Sakuno moved her hands off of her face and nervously looked around the cafe for a minute. A few of their schoolmates were still looking their way, so Sakuno quickly shook her head back and forth, "No. I mean...yes, but I called it off."

Tomoka leaned over the table, "You _DID?"_

Sakuno nodded just enough for Tomoka to see it.

"But why would you do that? You love him! It's perfect!"

Sakuno wondered with irritation if the whole world knew she loved him. Not that she hadn't told her best friend on more than one occasion how much she liked the tennis prince, but she'd never once used the word _love_. First her grandmother, now Tomo-chan. Next thing she knew Ryoma-kun himself was going to declare it as truth and then insist on moving forward with the miai.

"I refuse to trap Ryoma-kun into marrying me. I want Ryoma-kun to marry for love," Sakuno said quietly.

Tomoka removed her upper half off of the table and leaned all the way back in her chair. Crossing her arms across her chest she said, "Oh really? You think he won't have a miai eventually? You're the one that knows first hand how bad he is with girls. If you love him and you won't take him, who will?"

"Tomo-chan!" Sakuno scolded. "Ryoma-kun is a drop dead gorgeous world famous tennis star. After graduation, I'm sure he'll be even more successful. He won't have any trouble finding plenty of beautiful women worthy of him."

Tomoka knew the same as anybody that it was true that some gold digger or halfwit model would probably marry Ryoma-sama if he ever wanted one and bothered to ask. He might be horrible with girls, but to many women personality wasn't all that big of a factor on a potential marriage mate. The things that mattered to the shallow women in those celebrity circles, that is, money and good looks...Ryoma-sama easily had both of those bases more than adequately covered. That wasn't exactly Sakuno's version of him marrying for love though.

If Sakuno, who'd known him since before he was famous, and being the only girl he ever really talked to within the last six years wouldn't marry him, she doubted very much that the tennis prince she admired so much would have a shot at a happy marriage at all. She'd believed from the time they'd all finished puberty and Ryoma-sama still hadn't shown much of an interest in girls that weren't Sakuno, and a rather passive interest in Sakuno herself, that if he wasn't in a miai with Sakuno, or married Sakuno somehow that his romantic future was probably not a good one. Too bad her best friend was too blinded by love for him and trying to be selfless to see it.

"I don't think so," Tomoka said. "So then, why did he want to have lunch with you? Is that when you turned him down?"

Sakuno shook her head again, "I told Grandma no after she told me about it. I didn't even know Ryoma-kun knew about it at all, and I thought that even if he did that he wouldn't say anything to me about it."

"So what did he say?" Tomoka asked. She watched as her friend's whole body turned bright red.

_Ohhh?_

"He-he-he-"

Tomoka waited patiently until finally Sakuno said hurriedly, "He said he wasn't going to let me out of it."

Tomoka threw her head back and burst out laughing.

Ryoma-sama had more guts than she gave him credit for!

As Tomoka laughed harder than she'd laughed in a long time and Sakuno sat across from her, completely mortified, their server brought them their drinks and cakes.

Finally calming down, Tomoka took a hesitant slurp of her hot chocolate before she asked, "So...you're going to marry him?"

For the second time that day, Sakuno choked on her food. Washing her small bite of cake down with her too hot green tea that slightly burned her tongue, she hissed scandalously, "Tomo-chan!"

"What? Think about it Sakuno. He'll never get married if it isn't to you."

Sakuno's jaw dropped in shock, "Tomo-chan, don't be ridiculous."

Tomoka leaned back in her seat again and crossed her arms over her chest, "In all the years we've known Ryoma-sama, you're the only girl he ever seeks out for company."

"That's just because our families are old friends," Sakuno quickly rebutted.

"You really think that's it?" Tomoka asked in disbelief.

Sakuno frowned and said, "Yes, I really do."

"So then, why hasn't he dated anybody until now?" Tomoka asked.

Sakuno shrugged, "I don't know. I always thought he wasn't interested in dating until he was older, or he hadn't met the right person."

"He's been old enough for a while now."

Sakuno shrugged noncommittally.

"So what if he's trying to tell you he met the right person already and that person is you?"

Sakuno bit her lip and looked down at her cake.

That...that was just impossible...his interest now was only because of the miai. Besides, he'd told her directly she was 'pretty enough' and something about how she was not annoying or something similarly equally unflattering. She might be lacking in experience, but she'd be willing to bet those aren't exactly the words of a man in love.

* * *

Early the next morning Sakuno was dismayed to find Ryoma waiting just outside the gate to her house.

"Good morning Ryoma-kun," She politely greeted anyway.

Ryoma ignored the slight hesitancy in her voice as he greeted her back and reached for her hand. With that, he began leading them towards their school.

Only a few steps away from the front of her house, Sakuno tugged her hand free from his hold. Her head was decidedly pointed down at the sidewalk so her bangs cast a dark shadow over her eyes as she said, "Ryoma-kun, this isn't a good idea."

He paused to take her hand back into his own and continued to lead the way saying simply, "It's fine."

They traveled forward in silence for a ways until finally Sakuno couldn't help herself anymore and started complaining, "Ryoma-kun is not my boyfriend. Ryoma-kun should not hold my hand. Ryoma-kun should not call me Sakuno only. Ryoma-kun should not be at my house early in the morning. Ryoma-kun-"

"Are you finished?" Ryoma interrupted irritably.

Sakuno's lower lip protruded into a big pout at his question while he squeezed her hand.

"This is too much," She huffed.

He stopped walking then and turned towards her. Sakuno took a big step back, but she didn't get far since Ryoma was still clutching her hand tightly. He advanced on her as she continued to move away. They shuffled quickly until they were almost chest to chest against the wall at the edge of the sidewalk. Unable to move away anymore, Sakuno turned her head away, looking over his shoulder to the street and watched a couple of cars drive by.

Ryoma moved his other hand to the tips of her fingers on the hand he wasn't holding and slowly traced a feather-light touch up her arm. He watched in fascination as the girl in front of him turned pink and then shivered.

"It's not enough," He countered.

Her eyes shifted up to meet his then, and he wasn't sure how to take her surprised look.

He'd told her he wanted to marry her just yesterday, didn't he?

This really shouldn't surprise her...mada mada dane.

"R-r-ryoma-kun," She sputtered as he began pulling her in the direction of the school again.

"Hurry or we'll be late."

Same as the day beforehand, Ryoma sought Sakuno out for lunch and they enjoyed some lunch bread on the cold bench by the tennis court, away from all the (wiser) students that stayed indoors where it was warm. They didn't talk while they were eating, and then after they were finished, Ryoma rubbed her hands for a few minutes to warm them up while Sakuno babbled to him about the new cake she'd tried at the cafe with Tomoka the day before, purposely leaving out what the girls had discussed.

Ryoma chose wisely not to remind Sakuno that she'd told him that she and her friend were actually going to the music store. Instead he asked, "Are you coming to watch practice after school?"

He'd known she had plans the day before and honestly it had peeved him just a bit that she'd planned to skip watching his practice. If she skipped out two days in a row though...

Well...just...she better not be trying to avoid him...

Sakuno had nodded briefly as the lunch warning bell had rang out, letting them know it was time to get back to class.

After school, Sakuno waited at their classroom entrance for Tomoka to show up, and Ryoma lingered by Sakuno's side. As Tomoka approached she greeted them and then immediately started complaining, "I hate it that we aren't in the same class this year. How did that happen? All these years of being together, you'd think we could have had our senior year together as well!"

Sakuno nodded emphatically with agreement. It was a bitter sentiment the two girls had been griping about all year.

"Hn...Sakuno and I have always been in the same class," Ryoma observed.

Both girls gave him a surprised look.

"I didn't think Ryoma-kun noticed," Sakuno commented quietly.

He shook his head, "Mada mada dane."

Tomoka bumped into Sakuno gently, "See? Ryoma-sama _notices_ you."

Sakuno flushed red while Ryoma stuffed his hands in his school pants' pockets seemingly unfazed by Tomoka's comment to Sakuno.

Tomoka giggled for a second before she said, "Ne, Ryoma-sama. Sakuno told me yesterday that you're her boyfriend."

"She did?" Ryoma asked hopefully while at the same time Sakuno denied, "No I didn't!"

Ryoma looked at Sakuno's flushed face from the side of his eyes as he drawled out an interested, "Hnnnn."

"Don't encourage him!" Sakuno scolded Tomoka.

"But I want to encourage him!" Tomoka replied.

Ryoma stopped walking and both girls stopped as well. He shot a slight smile Tomoka's way and said, "Thanks, Osakada-san."

"Ryoma-kun!" Sakuno scolded him.

He gave her a bored look.

"Mou!" Sakuno exclaimed, "I don't like it when you are teaming up against me."

Tomoka patted her friend's shoulder consolingly, "It's for you own good."

Ryoma's eyes danced with amusement as he smirked.

Sakuno pouted.

"What do you think Osakada-san?" Ryoma asked.

Tomoka was surprised he was talking to her directly, since he usually didn't say much to her, least of all address her, and she was pretty certain he'd never asked for her opinion.

"About what, Ryoma-sama?"

"The wedding."

Tomoka laughed happily, "I can't wait to help Sakuno plan it."

"Ah," He said as a wide grin broke out on his face. Encouraged and satisfied at Sakuno's best friend's answer, he sent a slight wave to the two girls as he entered the team room to change for practice.

If Osakada-san thought it was as good as done, then he had this in the bag.

* * *

 


	6. Chapter Six

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Six

* * *

_If only Sakuno would stop fighting him about this, they could start planning out the rest of their lives already!_

It had been a sentiment Ryoma considered at least five times a day ever since his parents had first approached him about the miai. He was turning eighteen in a couple of weeks, on top of that high school graduation was only a few months away. They had a lot to do if they were going to get married, get their own place to live, and prepare to join the ATP world tour in April.

Why couldn't she just give in already? Why was she still resisting him on even dating, let alone on getting married? It just simply made no sense to him.

After all, the girl definitely liked him.

_Enough, that is._ She definitely liked him _enough._ Well, at least he was sure that she didn't _dislike_ him, and as far as he knew there wasn't any guy that she _liked_ liked, so there was no reason to believe she couldn't like him. That was enough to at least give it a shot, right?

She had said she had to love him though, and that was a problem because he had no idea how to get a girl to fall in love with him. He'd never thought about it before, let alone tried. All his life it had been one girl after another that would tell him how much they loved him and he would either ignore them or tell them no before walking away. He'd never fathomed that he'd have any difficulties with getting a girl to love him. They all said they did without him doing anything. Well, they all did except for Ryuzaki Sakuno.

How inconvenient was that?

He'd thought about asking for help, but the only guy he knew that had accomplished the whole love and marriage thing was his old man, and he already knew his old man's horrible love (or rather sex ed) advice. He'd been blocking it out for years in order to avoid early mental trauma induced from too much information about your parents' love lives.

_Yuck!_

Their senpai-tachi were all off to university or jobs, but even among them, none of them were married yet. Ryoma didn't even know if any of them were dating anybody.

What a mess.

Horio, Kachiro and Katsuo hadn't had girlfriends as far as he knew either.

He'd been walking Sakuno to and from school all week, holding her hand every chance he got, and buying her lunch everyday, but he didn't feel like any progress had been made yet. Weren't those the things people did that were dating and falling in love? Why wasn't it working?

_What else was he supposed to do?_

He was comforted that Sakuno's friend Osakada-san had said she was encouraging him and was looking forward to planning the wedding, but that didn't really help him with figuring out how to get Sakuno to fall in love with him either.

Maybe he should ask Osakada-san for some suggestions. After all, her best friend probably knew what kind of things she liked to do besides tennis. Not that tennis was a bad idea, but he'd been doing tennis things with Sakuno for years and that hadn't even been enough for her to say yes to the miai. He was being forced to think outside of the box...

So basically, he didn't have _a clue._

At least she waited to walk home with him, though he still wasn't sure if that was because she was directionally challenged, or if it was because she liked walking home with him. At this point, he kind-of felt like it was a toss up.

"This weekend Grandma is taking me to meet up with Fuji-senpai," Sakuno informed him quietly about a block away from her house Friday afternoon.

They'd been ambling along in silence, and as she'd made her announcement, he'd realized why she'd been so completely quiet that afternoon. _She hadn't wanted to tell him about it._

Which had to mean...

"For a miai?" He asked.

Sakuno nodded her head.

Ryoma shuttered his eyes with annoyance, "So you haven't told Coach that you're going to marry me?"

Sakuno shook her head, "Ryoma-kun how many times do I have to tell you-"

"You _aren't_ available."

Sakuno sighed and grumbled, "Arguing with Ryoma-kun about this is pointless."

"Tell Coach you can't go."

"I can't do that, Ryoma-kun."

"You shouldn't lead Fuji-senpai and his family on. That's not right."

"Who says I'd be leading them on?"

Ryoma stopped walking. As Sakuno's hand was pulled back at his action, she stopped as well and turned back towards him. She tried to pull her hand free then, as she always did, but Ryoma squeezed her hand tighter to prevent it as he always did.

"You know you aren't going to marry Fuji-senpai."

Sakuno huffed, "I promised Grandma I would try!"

"So try with me."

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

"I told you, I just can't."

"But you can try with _Fuji-senpai?"_

Sakuno's shoulders slumped forward. She glanced up and met his eyes. Ryoma saw the truth in her eyes for a moment. It was as if their very souls had a brief conversation. She looked so incredibly vulnerable...his heart stopped.

What...what was that?

He pushed down on his chest with his free hand and looked down for a second.

_What was that?_

"Ryoma-kun is right, I should tell Grandma there's no way I'll marry Fuji-senpai."

He looked up with a smirk and ignored the frantic beating coming from his chest, "Great. You can marry me, just like we planned."

"Ryoma-kun! _We didn't plan anything!"_

His chest squeezed again and he took a deep breath hoping it would stop as he said, "We should really start planning things. I want to join the ATP world tour right after graduation and I want you to come with me."

Sakuno's eyes widened.

He wanted her to travel with him? As in...all around the world... _all the time?_

"Ryoma-kun...I don't understand..."

"I want to get married as soon as possible."

He said it so casually, Sakuno felt like they could be discussing their school assignments for the weekend, not the rest of their lives. _Together._ Not to mention all the things that married couples would do that she just...

Just...oh, she just couldn't even think about doing _that stuff_ with Ryoma-kun, it made her want to faint!

_He just didn't get it at all!_

She moved to start walking towards her house again, and Ryoma joined her, matching his steps to hers.

At the gate to her property he instructed, "I want you to tell the old lady that we're getting married."

"I'll tell her I'm not going to marry Fuji-senpai, but I'm not going to marry you either!"

"Sa-"

She jerked her hand away from his quickly and ran into her house.

Ryoma kicked a pebble on the sidewalk to vent his frustration and then made his way towards his house.

As Sakuno burst through the front door, her grandmother dropped the book she was reading in momentary fright. It was so unlike her granddaughter to slam the door closed. _What happened?_

"I'm home!" Sakuno announced.

"Welcome home," Sumire greeted back.

Sakuno appeared in the family room where Sumire was sitting a moment later, "Grandma...I'm calling off the miai with Fuji-senpai too. I'm sorry, I just can't...not with him."

Sumire frowned for a moment and asked, "Is there something you aren't telling me?"

Sakuno pouted, but remained silent. Sumire knew her granddaughter well enough to know that meant she was keeping something from her. Trying to get secrets out of Sakuno wasn't very hard, but for the sake of not being a nosy nanna, she didn't usually bother trying. This, however, was an important issue.

Sumire patted the floor next to her at their kotatsu and said, "Why don't you have a seat under the kotatsu with me and tell me what's on your mind?"

Sakuno drug her feet over to the kotatsu and slumped down on the floor. Wrapping the blanket around her legs, she stretched them out for a minute and sighed at the comfort the heater under the table gave her chilled legs from the winter weather outside.

"I..I just don't think I can have a miai with someone I already know."

Sumire gave Sakuno a hard look before she asked gently, "Is it because of Ryoma?"

Sakuno flushed and asked, "What do you mean?"

Sumire gave Sakuno a knowing grin, "Don't think I haven't noticed that young man glued to your side this last week."

Sakuno sighed, "Ryoma-kun..." She shook her head.

Sumire placed a hand over Sakuno's hand that was resting on the tabletop, "Are you sure you don't want to try things with Ryoma?"

Sakuno shook her head emphatically at that, "I'm sure that I can't have a miai with Ryoma-kun!"

Sumire patted her hand, "What if it's not a miai? Do you want to try dating him before I find someone else for you?"

Sakuno shook her head again, "Ryoma-kun is..." She sighed a big sigh and finally settled on, "He doesn't like me like that. It's pointless."

"Are you sure about that?"

Sakuno nodded her head, "I'm sure."

"So why has he been holding your hand and walking you to and from school all week?"

Sakuno wanted to drop her head onto the tabletop and pound it against the hard surface repeatedly. She didn't, but it took a huge amount of self control to refrain herself from indulging in the freedom of banging her head to make it all go away, even if it was only momentarily. She was really tired of the topic of her and Ryoma that had invaded her every waking hour all week.

"I don't know."

"Don't you want to find out?"

Sakuno shook her head again, "I don't think so."

"Is Ryoma really so bad?" Sumire asked, somewhat shocked at Sakuno's firm resolve against the boy she'd been so in love with ever since the day she'd met him.

Sakuno met her grandmother's eyes with a sad expression of defeat, "It can never happen, Grandma. I know this. Ryoma-kun is a famous tennis star...after graduation he's planning on joining the ATP full time. There will be tons of travel and people and...just...if he loved me, maybe I could handle it and it could all be okay, but... _he doesn't."_

"But...how do you know he doesn't love you?"

"I know."

She said it with such finality, Sumire felt almost at a loss for words. She pet Sakuno's hand consolingly, "He might be more fond of you than you think, child."

Sakuno blinked to keep herself from rolling her eyes as she recalled for about the thousandth time Ryoma's words that fateful Monday morning, "No, he likes me enough for him, just _not enough for me."_

Sumire's eyebrows raised at Sakuno's unlikely confession. _So they had talked about it._ Even though she'd seen the two walking together all week, she was still a little surprised to hear that they'd actually talked. It hadn't exactly been one of Ryoma's strong points when she'd been first considering the candidates for a miai with Sakuno.

Still, if Sakuno was so informed on the subject and she was still insisting that she didn't even want to try with the tennis prince, then, whatever he may or may not have said had sealed the deal. Honestly, she was really disappointed. After she'd seen the two teens together she'd hoped maybe this whole miai suggestion had prompted them to work things out.

Apparently not.

She sighed and decided to push a little more about Fuji. Sakuno hadn't seen him for a couple of years. She couldn't keep setting up miais for the the girl and then backing out. She needed to at least give him the courtesy of a few visits. If she was still against the older tennis genius, then maybe it would be time to start calling all her friends to see who was available for a miai with Sakuno that didn't already have some acquaintance with the girl.

"I'm sorry for disappointing you," Sakuno muttered dejectedly.

Sumire shook her head, "I'm so proud of you. Don't you worry child. We'll figure something wonderful out for you. Above all else, I want you to be happy."

A small tear escaped Sakuno's eye and she hastily wiped at it with her free hand.

_Everything would be okay..._

* * *

The next morning Sakuno was woken up early by her cell phone buzzing at her. Taking a look at it she noticed she had a text message from Ryoma:

_Get ready. I'm coming over._

Sakuno huffed before she slammed her phone down on the side of her bed next to her. Just who did Ryoma-kun think he was? She flopped over, determined to go back to sleep. A minute later she somehow found herself getting up and getting ready instead.

About an hour later, she saw Ryoma making his way down her street, so she grabbed her purse, her phone and her keys, and with a quick goodbye to her grandmother, she was out the door.

She met Ryoma at her gate, and as she opened it and closed it behind her she asked, "What's going on?"

She noticed Ryoma's lack of hat, tennis bag and racquet and wondered what that meant. It was really rare for him to not have at least his tennis bag slung over his shoulder if he didn't have his hat on and wasn't carrying his racquet around in his hand.

Ryoma didn't answer, instead he turned and crossed the street. He stopped and looked back at her until she ran over to him. After that, he led the way to the closest subway station and before Sakuno knew it, the two of them were boarded on one of the trains headed out to she didn't know where.

"Where are we going?" Sakuno asked.

Ryoma's mouth twitched for a moment before he said, "Surprise."

Unable to help herself, Sakuno flashed him a bit of a grin. She rarely did anything adventurous, so this was kind-of fun. She felt a bit excited.

Close to an hour and two train changes later, they finally exited the subway system and made their way topside. Sakuno was surprised to instantly be hit with a sharp seabreeze. Her cheeks flushed at the cool air. She spread her arms out wide, as if trying to catch the breeze as it whipped around them and took a deep inhale of the fresh sea air.

"Ryoma-kun! We're at the ocean!" She exclaimed excitedly.

Ryoma grinned as he took her hand and began leading her towards a large round complex near the sea's edge.

"Where are we? What is this place?" She asked as they approached the large entrance to the complex.

"This is Ariake Coliseum."

They made their way inside the building after being greeted by a staff member. Ryoma calmly led the way through the passage as Sakuno followed behind him becoming curiouser and curiouser still.

"So why did we come here?"

"I wanted you to see it," He simply replied as they stepped into the main arena.

Sakuno gasped at the size of the huge arena she was now standing on the ground level of. She swept her eyes upward and spun around in a circle taking it all in. Her eyes returned back to the ground level as she said, "Wow."

"This is...my life," Ryoma said.

Sakuno's head tilted slightly to the side as she wondered what exactly he meant by that, "What do you mean?"

He grabbed her hand and led her to the baseline of the tennis court in the center of the ground level of the arena. Standing behind her he took her arm into his and swept both of their arms up in a large arc around the view from ground level and up. "When I'm standing here," he said lowly into the back of her ear, "There are more lights and people, but this is what I do."

Sakuno nodded and tried to take it all in, imagining what the stadium would look like filled with people. She imagined being the center of attention with all the lights creating a false daylight inside the stadium focused on her and whoever her opponent was on the opposite side of the court.

"Ryoma-kun is so brave," Her thoughts slipped out of her mouth unconsciously, and she blushed as she realized she'd said her thoughts out loud as Ryoma scoffed behind her.

He placed both of his hands on her hips and turned her body to the side, causing her to focus on the sideline seats, "That is where I want you."

Sakuno's jaw dropped with surprise as she realized what he was getting at in bringing her to the coliseum. Speechless, she stared at the seats in wonder as Ryoma rubbed a small circle on her hip with his left thumb.

She imagined what it would be like to be Ryoma-kun, looking over to the seats and seeing her there. She would be cheering for him, maybe he would give her a smirk here and there. In time, perhaps she would have a little one on her hip or jumping up and down in excitement on the seat next to her. Ryoma-kun would...would...her heart twisted with pain, and she gasped.

As Sakuno stumbled forward, Ryoma's arms wrapped around her waist with ease and he pulled her back up straight, "Are you okay?"

"No," Sakuno shook her head. She bit her lip desperately trying to keep the tears at bay.

_Why was he doing this to her?_ It was torture. It was beyond every fantasy she'd ever had of them falling in love and spending forever together. Could she even recover from this?

"I-I don't feel good," She whispered brokenly.

Ryoma spun her around, and frowned as he took in her pale complexion and unhappy look. She looked like she was about to puke, or cry, or both. He desperately wanted to demand that she tell him what her problem was so he could fix it, but he'd been trying to do so all week long and she'd proven to be an impenetrable fortress.

"Ryoma-kun, take me home," She said softly.

"Fine."

As they left the stadium, they paused at the entrance while Ryoma signed a few things for the guard that had let them in. The guard waxed enthusiastic about how awesome of a tennis player Ryoma was, and how he couldn't wait to see him play again soon.

Sakuno watched with a type of detachment as Ryoma turned into the big superstar he would be someday before her very eyes. He said all the right words, did all the right things, and happily signed his name. It was so unlike the Ryoma-kun she knew. He was already famous, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he was so much more. He would be the world's number one. Then he would be this way all the time. She had no doubt, and when he was on top...

The last thing he'd want is some simple little girl he'd known since middle school hanging around and dragging him down.

Ryoma waved his hand in Sakuno's direction and said, "Thanks again for opening up the arena for my fianceé and I today."

As they boarded back on the subway to get back home, Ryoma sat next to her and wrapped his arm over her shoulders. Sakuno sighed inwardly.

"You shouldn't have told that security guard that I'm your fianceé," She said.

Ryoma shrugged, "It got us into the coliseum."

"So what are you going to do when we don't get married?"

"We're getting married. Just accept it already."

Sakuno groaned as she dropped her face into his shoulder and wondered at the irony of their relationship. He was both the source and the comfort of her problems. Somehow he drove her crazy and still offered her a shoulder for her to cry on at the same time.

Was it because he'd really become such a good friend to her over the years that she felt so comfortable with him? She had to wonder if she'd have even had the guts to tell the tennis prince no to a miai a couple of years ago, though granted, if this had happened back then, she might have been stupid enough or naïve enough to get caught in the trap. Fast forward to when the two of them were about 23 or 24 and she'd likely have her world falling apart around her as Ryoma-kun left her for some super model or amazing female tennis genius. She'd have a child or two to bring home to Japan with her and nobody else in the world because her whole world had been traveling around the world for so many years with only Ryoma-kun.

She'd seen the way his father acted around women, and she'd heard the stories of how he was when he'd first gone professional from Auntie Rinko. She wasn't as strong as Auntie though. She didn't have what it would take to keep someone like that interested in only her and away from all the talented and beautiful women that would be throwing themselves at Ryoma-kun every step of the way.

Why didn't he understand? Why did he want to get married so badly anyways? Was it really as simple as that he couldn't stand the idea of her telling him no?

As they walked down her street Ryoma asked her if she was feeling any better.

She sighed and said, "I don't know."

"Hn, so I guess that means you don't want to stop for a snack?"

Sakuno paused for a moment with interest at the lure of getting a treat out. What would she do once she got back home anyway? Just sulk around for the rest of the day about Ryoma-kun, no doubt.

She stopped walking and turned towards him, "Actually, that sounds good."

* * *


	7. Chapter Seven

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Seven

* * *

Ryoma changed their direction and headed to their local burger shop that he frequented with Momoshiro. Sakuno was a little disappointed that Ryoma's idea of a snack was the burger place and not a cafe where she could get tea and cake, but she was still grateful she wasn't back at home moping around.

Ryoma ordered a few burgers and a couple of drinks for them and quickly enough, they found themselves seated across from each other at one of the booths.

As Ryoma finished off his second burger, he paused to stretch his arms out against the back of the booth and said, "This is nice."

At his statement, Sakuno dropped her burger. It flopped back onto it's wrapper with a dull thump as she let out a startled, "What?"

What did he mean? What a weird statement from him.

Ryoma shrugged as he reached for a third burger and unwrapped it. Sakuno marveled at how much he could eat so quickly, she'd barely made it through half of one.

"Just hanging out with you, having some burgers, this is nice."

If Sakuno hadn't already dropped her burger, she definitely would have dropped it then.

"Ryoma-kun and I have been having lunch together all week," She said.

He scoffed, "School is different."

Sakuno rolled her eyes as he added, "Besides, this isn't lunch."

Sakuno pulled her cell phone out of her purse for a second to check the time and observed that, yes, it was too late in the day to really call their meal lunch. It was more like an early dinner. She hadn't even realized that they'd been away for such a long time.

"I didn't know the coliseum was so far away," She commented.

"That's because you have no sense of direction or time," Ryoma deadpanned.

Sakuno smiled at him and said, "Just one more reason why you should give up on this stupid miai."

Ryoma shook his head, "One more reason to want to take care of you. You would not have survived the last six years if it wasn't for me."

Sakuno frowned as she realized the truth in his words. Ryoma-kun _was_ always saving her from scrapes, and making sure she wasn't lost, or finding her when she was lost. He didn't really need to rub her face in it though and...

"That's a horrible reason to marry someone," She scolded.

He gave her a look of disinterest in the topic, "You know that's not my reason."

She sighed, "Your real reasons aren't good either."

Ryoma set down the third that was left of his third burger back on the wrapper for a minute and gave her a serious look, "Are you saying you won't marry me because you don't like my reasons?"

Sakuno's eyes widened as he continued with a bit of annoyance, "You said all I have to do is make you love me-"

"I never said that!" She interrupted.

He shook his head and rubbed his hand down his face for a moment, "I don't understand you, Sakuno. Are you changing the rules?"

"Ryoma-kun! This isn't a game that has rules that can be changed. Marriage is...is..." She flustered as her mind spun through all the intimate things she saw a marriage as being and lost her words.

"It's what?"

"It's...it's everything!" She stopped as her mind played out visions for her of marital bliss and even as her mind showed her the images, she dismissed them as being impossible with someone like Ryoma. Blushing furiously, she repeated herself quietly, " _It's everything,_ Ryoma-kun."

Ryoma placed his elbow on the table and put the side of his face in his hand. Giving her a long look he finally said, "So you're scared."

Sakuno wanted to slink under the table so she could hide from him as she blushed more furiously at his words. She couldn't believe he'd just said _that_ to her. Of all the uncomfortable conversations they'd had all week, this one was quickly topping the list.

Ryoma-kun, Ryoma-kun, Ryoma-kun...he would always and forever be a cocky know-it-all tennis prince, wouldn't he?

She took a deep breath for courage as she said meekly, "A little bit, I guess. I mean, I've never even..."

Ryoma nodded slightly as he said, "I know. I haven't either..."

_How was he even able to say that without getting embarrassed?_

Sakuno couldn't believe they were talking about...

She huffed a bit with frustration, hoping to end the insanely uncomfortable for her topic of conversation she said, "Just as well that Ryoma-kun should wait for someone better than pretty enough and not annoying."

Ryoma's eyebrows rose with interest as he quickly shot back, "What's better than that?"

Sakuno's jaw dropped with shock. How could he even mean that? If that was his standard for something good, _just how lowly did he rate most girls?_

"Ryoma-kun can't be serious."

"I'm serious. There's nobody better than you. I told you, it has to be you."

Sakuno shook her head in denial, "There's no way."

Ryoma pushed his back into the back of the booth and gave her a long assessing look. Finally, he asked, "What is it you aren't telling me?"

Sakuno shook her head, "I don't know what you're talking about. Listen. Ryoma-kun. You're going to meet somebody one of these days and they'll take your breath away and they'll be amazing and perfect. I'm not going to take that away from you."

Ryoma shook his head, "Mada mada dane."

Immediately irritated, Sakuno grabbed her purse, scooted out of the booth and stood up, "I've had enough. I'm going home." Spinning on her heel, she stormed out of the burger joint and charged down the street at a quick pace.

Ryoma watched stunned for a moment as Sakuno tore out of the restaurant, and then quickly took chase. Within a couple of minutes, he was on her heels. Grabbing her hand from behind and slowing her down, he said, " _I think you're perfect for me."_

Sakuno stopped and put her face in her free hand. Choking back a sob, she took a deep shaky breath and tried to process her crazy week. He was being incredibly sweet to her today, and she'd been pushing him away, and pushing him away, and pushing him away. He hadn't given up on her yet, and she didn't know if she should be flattered or terrified.

She wondered if he was being sincere or if he was just trying to make her love him, as he'd declared a few days prior that he would. Was this just another challenge for him _or did he really feel this way?_ How could she know? What was she supposed to do? If she even gave him an inch on this, he would probably shatter her heart to pieces. It could be sooner, it could be later, but Ryoma-kun was the only person that could break her completely if she opened herself up to him. If it wasn't for the miai, all her dreams would be coming true, but since the miai happened, she couldn't trust any of it. The potential power he had over her... _if his heart wasn't invested..._

"Ryoma-kun..." She quivered into her palm.

He stepped closer to her. Releasing her hand, he wrapped his arm behind her shoulders. He rubbed his hand up and down her upper arm, "You don't have to be afraid."

Her heart melted a bit more. Why was he being so nice to her? Was this really how it would be...?

She gulped in some air as she allowed herself to tilt a bit to the side, leaning up against his chest. Once again, she was being comforted by the very one that was causing her anxiety. It was a cruel irony. This situation. Her life. Her future. Everything.

"We're old friends, aren't we? I should be the least scary option for a miai," He grouched into her hair.

Sakuno giggled a bit, "Ryoma-kun is _the most_ scary!"

"What? Why?"

Sakuno pushed away from his embrace and began walking in the direction of her house again, Ryoma followed, matching his stride to her slower, shorter one.

"Ryoma-kun is going to be the world number one."

"Hn."

"Super models will be throwing themselves at you."

"Not if I'm married."

Sakuno rolled her eyes and turned her head to the side to give him a look of disbelief.

Ryoma gave her a look saying he thought she was being dense and said, "I don't like those kind of girls."

"Everybody likes those kind of girls."

" _I don't."_

"Fine. What about the women's players? Aren't they amazing?"

Ryoma shook his head, "Those girls are _the most_ annoying."

Sakuno's eyes widened, "What? Really?"

Ryoma shoved his hands into his pockets and grumbled about how female professional tennis players were conceited know-it-alls that expected you to worship the ground they walked on.

Sakuno mused at the irony of how he practically described a female version of himself. Hmmm...was it really true what they say about opposites attracting? She'd always bet on Ryoma liking a girl that was as amazing at tennis as he was. It was why she'd taken it up herself all those years ago. The fact that she'd been at it for years and while she could play decently, she was no talent like Ryoma-kun had been one more thing on her list of reasons why things wouldn't work out with him.

_Had she been wrong?_

As they reached her gate, they walked up the pathway to her front door and he said, "Why are you so worried about other girls?"

Sakuno sighed and confessed, "It's just that...I don't...well, I couldn't ever...if something ever happened, I couldn't recover from that, so I..."

Ryoma took a step closer to her, leaving barely a foot between them and said quietly, "Hey. You know I'm nothing like my old man, right?"

Sakuno gave a slight nod.

"So what are you worried about?"

Sakuno shrugged, "I just can't handle it. If we were ever...and then if there was ever someone you really liked..."

He was shaking his head at her, so she stopped, suddenly feeling stupid.

"So you _have_ thought about marrying me?"

"Ryoma-kun! _This is serious!"_

He moved a little closer and said quietly, "I'm being serious. You've thought about it?"

She struggled for an answer as he moved in closer still.

"Why are you doing this to me?" She whined.

"I already told you," He whispered as he closed the small distance between them.

As he got within an inch of her mouth, Sakuno finally realized what was happening, "Ryoma-k-!" Her exclamation was cut off as she stepped back, and hit air since her doorstep wasn't that wide. Losing her balance, her arms flew up high and she shrieked in fright as she dropped off the doorstep. As her back foot hit the ground from the huge drop, her other foot caught on its heel up on the doorstep. Her leg kicked forward, flying up above her. With a woozy flip into the air, she landed on her back on the ground. The back of her head smacked the concrete ground with a sickening thump.

"Sakuno!" Ryoma exclaimed as he jumped down next to her.

_He felt like his heart had just been ripped out of his chest._

"Unnnn," She moaned as she grasped her head with her hand. Ryoma felt relief at hearing her complain.

_She was alive. She was conscious._

He knelt next to her, pushed her hand away and rubbed his fingers along her scalp checking for injury.

"Why did you do that?" He scolded.

Sakuno moaned again and tried to roll away from him.

_Considering how much he complained about others being noisy, he sure was a loud mouth._

He huffed with frustration as she turned her back to him.

"I'm going to carry you inside," He announced as he stood up, leaned over and scooped her up into his arms.

Sakuno moaned again at the brisk movements. As he adjusted her weight in his arms, she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and laid her head against his chest, wanting to be comforted, even if he was going to scold her some more. Her head was pounding furiously at her and she felt like she was going to faint from the shock of falling off of her doorstep.

_Ryoma-kun had totally just tried to kiss her._

She still couldn't believe it. Despite the pain, the circumstance that had led to her injury kept repeating over and over again in her mind. She could see his face clearly as it moved in closer and closer...

She could hear his heart beating furiously against her ear and marveled at it. She wondered if it was because he was going to kiss her or if it was because she'd hurt herself and then she scolded herself for thinking about such silly things when she probably had a serious head injury.

Ryoma pounded on the front door with his foot as his hands unconsciously curled around her body, pulling her closer to his chest.

Sumire opened the door a minute later and gasped at the two teens standing on her doorstep. Echizen Ryoma was carrying her granddaughter like a bride, and Sakuno had her arms wrapped around his neck.

_What happened?_

"Hi Granny. Sakuno fell down and hit her head."

Sakuno moaned in protest as he spoke.

_Everything was so ear-splitting loud._

Sumire's eyebrow rose in curiosity at Ryoma's address as he pushed past her into the house. He'd only ever called her Coach before, or Old Lady on the occasions he'd been especially snarky. She watched as he kicked his shoes off in her entryway and made his way up the stairs towards Sakuno's room.

"I'm going to stay here tonight so I can check her head every two hours. You have to do that with head injuries," He called back over his shoulder.

Sumire finally registered what Ryoma had said besides calling her Grandma and rushed into the kitchen to get an ice pack. A couple of minutes later, she joined the teens in Sakuno's room.

Ryoma had laid Sakuno down on her bed, and was busying himself with removing her shoes and her coat as her granddaughter groaned with protests.

Sumire knelt down next to the bed and placed the ice pack against Sakuno's head. Grabbing one of her hands, she placed it on top of the ice pack so she could hold it in place.

Sakuno made a slight sound of approval at the ice and then groaned again as Ryoma moved her again to pull her covers down from underneath her.

"What happened?" Sumire asked the young man.

Ryoma shook his head with disapproval as he tucked her in, "She stepped right off the doorstep and fell backwards."

Sumire's eyes widened in surprise. Sakuno had always been rather clumsy, but to fall off their doorstep was a new low.

"Why?"

She watched in amazement as a slight pink flushed across the cheeks of the young man that was still fussing over her granddaughter's sheets.

_Hmmmmm. Interesting._

Deciding that a level of tact was needed, Sumire didn't wait for the tennis prince to come up with some answer and instead addressed her charge quietly, "How are you feeling, Sakuno?"

Sakuno's eyes opened slightly as she cracked her version of a brave smile, "I've been better."

"Ryoma says you hit your head outside."

Sakuno gave a slight nod, and then winced at the pain that shot through her from moving her head.

"Do you need anything besides the ice? Do you want to go to the doctor?"

Sakuno opened her mouth, but Ryoma jumped into the conversation instead, "Don't worry Granny, I promised I'll take care of her. You can relax."

"Don't call her Grandma," Sakuno protested through another moan of pain. She rolled on her side, putting her back to the both of them. Grabbing the ice, she moved it around with her hand and then let out a huff of frustration.

Sumire gave Ryoma a grin as she leaned to the side and patted his cheek affectionately, "Don't listen to her. You can call me Grandma if you want to."

_Traitor._

Sakuno groaned again in obvious frustration. Sumire laughed and Ryoma smirked.

"After all, we were almost family once," Sumire added.

Sakuno pulled the covers up over her head while Ryoma asked flatly, "Almost?"

Sumire looked from Ryoma to the covers on the bed hiding her granddaughter and back to Ryoma. She bit her tongue to keep from saying anything further on the subject. Obviously, something was going on with the young couple in the room, and she was pretty sure she didn't want to get in the middle of it. Silently, she cheered for Ryoma to be successful. She wondered if she ought to call Fuji's family up to cancel the miai she'd scheduled for the next evening after all, but figured it wouldn't be a good idea to burn another bridge just yet.

Raising up from the floor, she said, "I'll be down the hallway if you should need anything for Sakuno."

"Un," Ryoma grunted in acknowledgement as Sumire left the room.

As the door closed behind her, Ryoma dropped into the chair at Sakuno's desk and got his cell phone out of his pocket. He hit the button to call his house and quickly relayed to the answering machine that Sakuno had hit her head and he'd be staying there to watch over her that night. Depositing his phone on her desk, he stood up and made his way over to the lump of covers that made up Sakuno. She'd stopped moaning after her grandmother had left the room, and instead she laid there on the bed, unmoving.

Ryoma gently sat down on the bed next to her and put a hand against the top of her back, "How does your head feel?"

"It hurrrts," Whined the lump of covers. He heard the ice pack shift around, so he pulled the covers down a bit and put his hand over hers, holding the ice in place for her.

"I'll take care of you."

Sakuno didn't comment, and Ryoma didn't see it since she still had her back to him, but at his tender words, a tear made its way out of the corner of her eye and slid down the side of her face, hitting her mattress.

_Ryoma-kun..._

* * *

 


	8. Chapter Eight

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Eight

* * *

It was a rough night for both of them, as Ryoma woke Sakuno every hour to check on her head. Most of the conversations were a confusion of dreamstate to Sakuno caused by the lack of sleep and the pounding in her head.

"Sakuno, wake up..."

Groan.

Shake. Shake. Shake. "Wake up."

"My head hurrrrts."

"You fell down earlier."

"I don't want to dream about Ryoma-kun."

"You aren't dreaming."

Sigh. "Ryoma-kun doesn't sleep with me."

"Wanna bet?"

Sigh. "I don't want to dream about Ryoma-kun anymore."

"So you've been dreaming about me, have you?"

Sigh.

"Are we married with three kids and a cat?"

Groan.

"Are we traveling around the world on the ATP? Am I number one yet?"

Giggle, "Ryoma-kun is number one."

"Hn."

There were a few variations, but most of the middle of the night conversations went that way. Ryoma was pretty amused that she was always so certain he was just a dream, and wondered how she would react when she fully awoke the next morning and found him in her bed.

Sure enough, the tables were finally turned.

Sakuno woke later than she usually did to her head pounding furiously. She grabbed at her temples, willing the pain to go away as her head pulsed with protest at her movement.

"Ugh."

She tried to roll over to lay on her back and found herself unable to move. Scared, she put a little more force behind her attempted movement and then stopped dead in her tracks as she realized the cause of her predicament was the weight of an arm holding down her midsection.

She lifted the cover up slightly and tilted her head down taking in the masculine arm wrapped around her stomach and winced at the shooting pain in her head at her movement.

What...happened...?

She creased her brow and closed her eyes for a moment trying to piece together the last 24 hours. She remembered getting the text message from Ryoma-kun, quickly she jumped into Ariake Coliseum, to the burger place, and finally her front porch.

_Ryoma-kun had tried to kiss her._

Her heart began to pound frantically as her mind whirled around like a merry go round at top speed. She felt dizzy as she opened her eyes and took in the arm around her waist yet again. It had to be Ryoma...right?

Had they been kissing? Were they sleeping together now? Had she given in and said she'd marry him?

She closed her eyes as she felt the large body behind her shift slightly. The arm around her waist squeezed her for a moment before it moved up to cover her arm.

"Sakuno, wake up..."

_He was whispering, but it was definitely Ryoma-kun._

At her lack of response, Ryoma sat up. Pulling the covers down, he nudged her shoulder lightly, "Sakuno, wake up."

Unconsciously, she pouted, and Ryoma immediately caught on.

"Stop pouting and tell me if you're okay or not. You hit your head pretty bad last night."

_How did he know she was awake?_ Sakuno opened her eyes as she frowned, "Is that why my head hurts so much?"

Ryoma smirked down at her, even though she wasn't looking at him and missed it, "Hn...too much alcohol. Don't tell me you forgot what happened?"

Sakuno quickly flipped onto her back and gave Ryoma a frightened look, "What?" Immediately thereafter she flinched as she grabbed at her head and groaned at the pain her quick movement caused.

He chuckled for a moment and placed a hand on her head, "Sorry."

"Sorry...?" Sakuno burst into tears and wailed to him as she ignored the pounding protests of her head, "I told Ryoma-kun this was a bad idea!"

"Uhh..."

"Now I'm _ruined!_ Grandma will be shamed by her friends for my miai. I'll never get married, and Grandma will be so upset!"

Ryoma's eyes widened at her odd outburst, "Hey. Hey. What are you talking about?"

She turned to look at him then, her eyes flashing dangerously, "Why did you do this to me!?" It was half accusation, half question, and poor Ryoma still didn't know what she was talking about.

He reached his hands out to her shoulders, "Sakuno. Calm down. What are you talking about?"

She pushed him away and began waving her arms between the two of them, her eyes looking angrier by the second, "This! _This!_ You _SLEPT_ with me!"

Ryoma's forehead puzzled at his confusion, "You hit your head. What else was I supposed to do?"

Sakuno's mouth had been open, ready to yell at him some more, but at his words, her mouth closed abruptly. She grabbed the side of her head and groaned. As she leaned over and her head hit the top of the mattress she groaned out, "What? I hit my head? From drinking?"

"You fell off the doorstep you clumsy girl. It happened so fast, I couldn't even catch you. When we get married I'm going to have to wrap you up in bubble wrap."

Sakuno winced at his lecture as she grumbled, "I'm not going to marry you."

"Even though you slept with me?"

She reared her head up then, and as her eyes pinched with the pain from the abrupt movement, she punched her fist into Ryoma's chest.

He grabbed her fist and chuckled, "Are you trying to hurt me?"

" _ABSOLUTELY!"_

The girl was weak as a kitten, so she couldn't hurt him even if she put her entire weight behind a punch to his chest. _How amusing..._

Sakuno pulled her fist away from his loose grip and then repeatedly punched at his chest again and again, "I'll never forgive you for this. Why did you have to decide you want a miai? What is wrong with you? What about things like love? Don't you care at all? Why are you doing this to me? I don't want it this way! I never wanted it this way! Now I can't even get married to someone else so Grandma can be happy. How dare you sleep with me when I hit my head! After all this I can't even remember kissing or...or...Ryoma-kun! I'm so mad at you! This sucks! You suck! You suck! YOU SUCK!"

As she slumped against his chest and started crying again, Ryoma snickered against her head. _Maybe he shouldn't have joked about alcohol and sleeping with her..._

He rubbed his hands up and down her sides gently as he said quietly into the side of her head, "Nothing like that happened, but we can get started if you want."

Sakuno froze for a moment and then sniffled. As she pulled away from him and looked up at his face, his eyes drooped down a bit. The side of his mouth quirked up and then he moved closer to her, closing the distance between their faces.

Similarly to the night before, Sakuno realized just before he made contact what he was intending and she scrambled backwards away from him, "Ryoma-kun!"

He lifted his eyes up and turned his head to the side to see where she'd scrambled away too. Giving her a blank look he asked in a slightly irritated tone, "What is it this time?"

"W-wh-what?"

"You're avoiding me."

"Ano...I...ah..."

He slowly crawled over to her, "Don't be scared."

Sakuno flushed as she watched him approach. She began to slowly move back a little more, almost matching his approaching pace, her pounding head working frantically to come up with something to say that would protect her without hurting him.

"We'll work on it," He said as he reached her. He put his hands on her elbows and slowly moved his hands up her arms to her shoulders.

She marveled at how the feel of him touching her excited her so much. She was pretty sure she was going to faint any second.

"Ry-"

He moved towards her in a slow but fluid motion, not even pausing as she tried to protest. She cut herself off from speaking and bit down on her lip, feeling unsure. He watched her eyes widen just before he touched her and as his lips finally grazed across the surface of hers, there was a loud knock on her bedroom door.

"Sakuno? Ryoma? Are you two awake?"

They both pulled away from each other abruptly, their eyes meeting in mutual surprise.

_That had felt way too good for barely even..._

"We-we're up," Sakuno called through the door shakily.

The door opened and Sumire stood there in the doorway, taking in the flustered couple sitting on the bed. _Maybe she shouldn't have checked in on them?_ She'd heard what sounded like her granddaughter yelling coming from her bedroom so she'd hurried to check on her. She'd been worried about Sakuno's head, but from the looks of things...well, even Ryoma had a slight flush on his cheeks. Maybe there was more to this than Sakuno had told her. Maybe there was hope yet. Hopefully, she hadn't just ruined something.

_Well, what's done is done._

Sumire moved into the bedroom and approached Sakuno. Leaning over the younger woman she touched the back of her head with her hand and asked, "How are feeling?"

_"My head is killing me,"_ Sakuno quickly whined back.

Sumire tsked and said, "Let's get you up then and feed you so you can take some painkillers."

"Okay."

Removing her hand from Sakuno's head she turned to Ryoma and added, "You know you're welcome to stay Ryoma. We're going to have breakfast, and we don't have other plans until this evening."

Ryoma raised an eyebrow and looked over at Sakuno, "Plans?"

Sakuno winced, "Ano..."

Sumire looked back and forth between the two older teens with raised brows. _What was going on with these two?_ "I'm going to head downstairs and start making breakfast then, you two come down when you're ready."

"Thank you Grandma," Sakuno responded automatically.

As Sumire made a graceful exit from the room, only pausing slightly to close the door behind her, Sakuno and Ryoma stared across the bed at each other. They were silent for a few minutes, each one waiting for the other to say something.

"What plans?" Ryoma finally asked again.

Sakuno shrugged awkwardly, "I'm not really sure."

"You still haven't told her," Ryoma stated.

Sakuno felt a stab at her heart. _Why did he have to sound so betrayed?_ She'd told him no more times than she could count. Couldn't he see that this wasn't going to work...

The worst part of it was that ever since his lips had barely grazed hers she couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss him without interruption. Which was the last thing she could be thinking about! _How could it be that a half of a second of fleeting contact could make her feel so crazy?_ She was having the hardest time not staring at his mouth. She determinedly jerked her head to look away from him. She glared at her desk.

"Mou..."

"I don't like this."

Sakuno looked back at him, wincing once again at the jolt of pain that shot through her head at her quick movements.

"We're just wasting time at this point, right?"

Sakuno felt lost. What was he talking about? What did that mean? Was she supposed to know?

"What do you mean?"

He scooted slightly closer to her and said, "You know, my birthday is in a couple weeks, right?"

She nodded.

"Don't you want a wedding?"

Her jaw dropped. _Was he serious?_

"It takes some time to plan them, right? I don't know if you'll have enough time for-"

Sakuno pounded her fists into the mattress against the sides of her legs, "Ryoma-kun! Who says we have to get married right after your birthday?"

He gave her a victorious look as if he'd just laid out a trap and been successful at catching her, "I told you already I want to send in the papers as soon as possible. We have a lot to do before April."

Sakuno rubbed her hands up and down over her face a few times fighting off the migraine that was pounding away inside her head. She wondered what in the world she was supposed to say to the infuriatingly stubborn tennis prodigy sitting on her bed.

He pushed off from the bed and stood over her. She tried to follow, but the pounding in her head increased. As she paused on the edge of the bed in pain, Ryoma put his hands under her armpits and effortlessly lifted her up. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her flush against his body and whispered into her neck, "Careful."

She sighed and allowed her head to drop against his shoulder. It was still strange and exciting every time he touched her or held her. It had only been a week, but she was positive she could never get used to Ryoma-kun touching her so openly. In a way, she was grateful about the miai, otherwise she never would have experienced these sensations. The feeling of being in his arms, the way her heart raced when he held her hand, the euphoria of his lips gently pressing against hers.

_If only it was all real from his heart..._

This was no good.

Pushing him away, she stepped away from him. Making her way out of the room and down to the bathroom at the end of the hallway, she went through her morning rituals. As she exited the bathroom, Ryoma entered. She headed back to her room and changed into some fresh clothes and met up again with Ryoma in the hallway. Her headache was progressively getting worse, so she held her hand out to him, "Help me get downstairs?"

He seemed pleased by her request, and grasping onto her hand firmly, he pulled her to him. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he led the way as they took each step slowly, making their way downstairs.

Sumire was just finishing up on the breakfast preparations, and all three of them sat down to a simple breakfast of rice, fish, umeboshi and a steaming bowl of miso.

Ryoma grinned at the Japanese breakfast as it was his preference. He'd been hoping the Ryuzakis had a more traditional type of breakfast than what he'd typically get at his house. "Is this what you usually have?"

Sakuno gave him a surprised look, "Of course."

"Itadakimasu," He said before he grabbed his chopsticks and shoved a clump of rice in his mouth. The two women quickly following suit.

After a few bites, Sakuno popped the painkillers that Sumire had placed next to her water glass. She hoped they would ease the incessant pounding in her head quickly.

About halfway through the meal, Ryoma turned to Sakuno and asked, "This is what you make also?"

Sakuno frowned at him, "What else would I make?"

"Western."

Sakuno wondered if he was being insulting or complementary. He had lived in the US longer than he'd lived in Japan. Maybe he prefered western food? He had taken her to a burger place yesterday. Oh and what did she care? She wasn't really going to marry him, right? It shouldn't matter to her what kind of food Ryoma-kun preferred.

She still somehow found herself fretting in her mind, hoping she wasn't disappointing him. If only she didn't really love him, this would be so much easier. If only he hadn't sort-of kissed her this morning, and made her heart flutter with wants she had thought she'd finally successfully buried for good...

She shook her head, "I prefer Japanese breakfast."

He smirked before adding quietly, "I do too."

Sumire dropped her chopsticks. The two teens gave her surprised looks, as the older woman flushed. _This miai tonight was a mistake._ She should have trusted her gut that Ryoma and Sakuno would be together. She shouldn't have tried to set up another miai so quickly. Now they were obligated to go tonight. Sakuno was going to have a harder time than ever with this situation she'd thrust upon her in her haste to see her future secured.

As she gathered her chopsticks back up and mentally scolded herself more and more as she watched the two young adults interact, she hoped against all hope that things would all work out in the end for the best.

* * *


	9. Chapter Nine

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Nine

* * *

After breakfast at the Ryuzaki household, Sakuno declared her head was still bothering her and that she was going to rest up until she felt better. She made her way to the linen closet and yanked some of the spare blankets and pillows out before she headed into the family room, and proceeded to snuggle up under the kotatsu with her back against the sofa.

Ryoma followed after her, carried the blankets for her, and finally settled in next to her. As Sakuno turned on the television and began to flip through the channels looking for something to watch to pass the time, Ryoma drifted the back of his hand against her bare arm, "I like kotatsu."

Sakuno glanced at him from the side of her eyes distractedly as she continued to flip through the channels, "Me too." After all, the warmth radiating on her legs from the heater under the table _did_ feel like a slice of heaven to her on the cold winter day.

As his hand reached the end of her short sleeve shirt he turned his hand over and grazed his fingers slowly back down the way his hand had first traveled up her arm. Sakuno paused on the movie channel and watched his fingers trace over her arm silently.

His touch felt like _more than_ a slice of heaven. It felt way too good.

_It should be illegal for something to feel that good._

She put the remote down and turned slightly to look at him, grateful that her head didn't pound in protest at her movement. She still didn't feel good, but at least her head had stopped punishing her constantly. Or maybe it was just that the pain was quite a bit duller, or she was getting used to it. She wasn't sure, and Ryoma had her too distracted with his touching for her to give her head injury much analytical attention.

Ryoma's eyes had been watching the movements of his hand, but as he felt her look at him, he shifted his eyes up to meet hers, "You feel nice."

Sakuno's eyes widened slightly, and she swallowed, but didn't comment.

"Soft," He added.

She unconsciously licked her lips as she remembered once again the slight brush his lips had placed against her own earlier that morning. _His lips were soft..._

Part of her wanted to climb onto his lap and drop her mouth onto his in a heated kiss until she felt the world melt away. The other part of her was screaming that he needed to stop touching her before she went insane with want. This was crazy! _What was he doing to her?_ She'd always assumed that getting closer to Ryoma-kun would be amazing, but _she'd had no idea._

She would never be the same after this, of that much, she was certain. Her body felt like it had come to life this past week, and she didn't know what to think of it, other than that it was the scariest and yet most wonderful thing and that _it absolutely needed to stop..._ because...it wasn't real, it wasn't true...it wasn't...

"Ryoma-kun," She whispered slightly breathlessly.

He moved a bit closer to her as he grunted in response.

She didn't know what to say so she sat there watching him as he watched himself touch her arm. The both of them seemingly equally mesmerized by his gentle motions. Finally his eyes met hers again and he said, "I like touching you."

She caught her breath at his words, unable to think let alone speak to his declaration.

He moved his face closer to hers again, and as she sat there frozen thinking he would kiss her and wanting to let him, he dodged below her chin at the last second and grazed his lips against her neck.

She let out a shaky breath at the contact. _He was driving her insane!_

As he muttered something into her neck that she missed, his cell phone started playing a familiar tune. With a curse, he pulled away from her and fished his phone out of his pocket.

"What do you want?" He answered into the phone.

His rude greeting was the figurative shock of cold water Sakuno needed to snap herself out of her wanton daze. She blinked, and then gaped at Ryoma wondering how under any circumstances it would be acceptable to answer a phone like that.

"Where are you?" Echizen Nanjiro asked his son through the phone.

"Ryuzaki's," Ryoma replied back, instantly bored.

"Really?"

"Sakuno hit her head last night, so I stayed to keep an eye on her. Didn't you get my message?"

"Oh. I see. Taking care of the wife, huh?"

"Something like that."

Nanjiro laughed, "She won't have you though. Sucks to be you, kid!"

Ryoma grimaced for a moment feeling as if his old man was rubbing salt on open wounds. With more confidence than he really had he said, "We're getting married."

"Ryoma-kun!" Sakuno scolded. She didn't know who he was talking to for sure, but she was guessing that it was his father. It was bad enough with Ryoma trying to get the miai to work without getting his family involved all over again.

Ryoma shot Sakuno a warning glare as Nanjiro said, "Wellllllll...that's good news."

"Un."

"Ryoma-kun! Stop telling people that!" Sakuno insisted, ignoring his warning glare. At his lack of response, she reached over to take the phone from his hand, and Ryoma raised it out of her reach just in time.

As the two struggled over the phone Ryoma said loud enough for the speaker to pick up, "Gotta go Old Man," before he hit the power button, thus ending the call. Defeated, Sakuno stopped trying to grab for the phone. Ryoma pushed her back to where she'd been sitting, and slammed his phone down on the top surface of the kotatsu.

Sakuno leaned her elbow on the table and rested her whole face in the palm of her hand. In a frustrated tone she asked, "What are you doing, telling Uncle that?"

He gave her a satisfied grin that she didn't see since her face was buried in the palm of her hand, "After my birthday when we send in the registry for the family record, we should take a trip to the US. I want to buy a house in New York or Los Angeles."

Sakuno groaned as she dropped her head from her hand onto the top of the kotatsu. _He was as stubborn as a mule._

Ryoma reached over and rubbed the back of her head, "Is your head still hurting?"

"Mmm."

"Do you want some ice?"

She shook her head into the table.

"Painkillers?"

She shook her head again.

"Do you want to lay down? Take a nap? Take a bath?"

Sakuno groaned again before she muttered something unintelligible into the tabletop. A second later she lifted her head up. With a huge sigh, she grabbed the remote control and began flipping through the channels again.

Ryoma wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him, so that she was leaning against him. Sakuno didn't bother to try to stop him.

_Honestly, as much as she didn't want to get hurt, she enjoyed touching him too much to resist the contact._

Finally, she stopped on a romantic comedy movie that was playing on one of the movie channels. Setting the remote back on top of the kotatsu, she indulged in cuddling into Ryoma's shoulder. Quickly enough, she was snoozing away against his side.

Ryoma watched the movie Sakuno had stopped on with rapt attention. It was as if the secrets of the universe were being revealed to him.

_So this was how you get a girl to fall in love with you._

Got it.

As the movie credits rolled away on the television, Sakuno shifted in her sleep, leaning more of her weight into Ryoma. He moved slightly to accommodate her, his body facing hers slightly so she could rest against him more comfortably. He stared down at the top of her head, enjoying the moment for what it was.

He'd always been taking care of this girl, from the day they first met on the train when he was on his way to the Kakinokizaka Tennis Garden. The actions he'd done to protect her and care for her had always made him feel good, and he was a little surprised that he'd never realized before how much he liked her. _After all, it wasn't like he did nice things for other girls._

Weren't girls supposed to be better at these things? How was it that Sakuno had missed the signs that he'd been giving her all these years that he liked her? Why didn't she ever say anything to him? Why didn't she believe him when he said he wanted to marry her?

_Maybe she just really didn't like him?_ He felt his stomach drop at that thought, his chest constricting with pains he didn't even know existed. He took a deep breath, trying to get the pain in his chest to go away.

Ryuzaki Sumire entered the family room to see Ryoma staring hard down at the top of Sakuno's head as she leaned on the tennis prince, sleeping away. _Were these two always this close?_

"Hey," She greeted Ryoma softly.

Startled from his thoughts, Ryoma looked up to see Sakuno's grandmother looking down at him. She took a seat on the couch to the side of Sakuno, looking down on them.

"Hey Granny."

"How's Sakuno doing?"

"Getting better," Ryoma replied.

"That's good. How are you doing?"

Ryoma's eyes widened slightly in surprise. _Did she mean...?_ There's no way...he turned his face away and looked back down at Sakuno, "Fine."

"Is something bothering you?" Sumire pushed anyway.

He looked up again, and Sumire instantly recognized the familiar look in his eyes that she'd seen in Sakuno's the past week. _What was wrong with these dense children?_

"You really like her, don't you?" She asked gently.

A nod.

"Is she still being stubborn about it?"

Ryoma looked up again, the surprise evident in his eyes, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Ryoma...are the two of you together yet?"

He grimaced and shrugged.

"You don't know?" Sumire asked incredulously.

"All she does is say no to me, but..."

"She still walks with you?"

Nod.

"She still holds your hand?"

Nod.

"She still goes out with you?"

Nod.

"Hmmm...so what do you think that means?"

Another shrug, "I just want her to love me already so we can get married."

Sumire burst out laughing.

Ryoma's eyes widened with surprise as he placed his hands around Sakuno's ears so she wouldn't be woken up by the noise.

Calming somewhat, Sumire wiped a stray laugh tear from the corner of her eye as she asked, "You _really_ don't think she loves you?"

Ryoma's heart started beating furiously with renewed hope. _Just what exactly did Granny know?_ He must have been giving her quite the look because the next thing he knew, she'd outstretched her hand and flicked his forehead, "Hey-!"

"Her feelings for you run deeper than you think."

His heart leapt from his chest as he quickly looked away from Sakuno's grandmother, suddenly feeling overly embarrassed. He wished he had his hat with him, so he could pull the brim lower and hide his face from the older woman's all knowing eyes.

Her _feelings_ for him ran... _deep?_ What did that mean? Could it be as good as he was thinking it might be? Did this mean...?

"So you had better convince her to marry you soon. We already have another miai set up, you know."

Ryoma sent Sakuno's grandmother a scowl, "So tell them she's already engaged."

"Is she?" Sumire asked, her eyebrows raised with interest.

Ryoma gave a huff of irritation, "Kind-of."

"I thought she only said no?"

He looked away and glared at the wall before he gave a nod. He'd never been so tempted to lie before, but he knew well enough that as soon as Sakuno awoke she would deny it.

Sumire slapped her hands against her knees as she stood up from the couch, "Keep me updated, okay Ryoma? I'm cheering for you because I think you two are well suited and you'll be happy together."

His head whipped back in her direction. With an overly confident smirk he said, "I know."

Sumire shook her head at his sudden confidence before leaving the room. As she grabbed her keys to head out to run her shopping errands for the week, she hummed a little tune to herself and wondered what exactly Echizen Ryoma would do with the information she'd just shared with him.

_Hopefully Sakuno would forgive her slight interference when she was happily married to the tennis prince._

Besides...it had always been _glaringly obvious_ to everybody except for Ryoma that she'd been in love with him since they were first years in middle school.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Ten

* * *

A mostly healed Sakuno stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, quadruple checking her outfit. She turned to the side, and looked carefully from head to toe, then shifted again, so she could see as much of her back as possible while craning her neck over her shoulder. She turned again and examined herself from the front, while pulling at the ends of her cashmere sweater, tugging out creases that didn't exist in the soft, warm fabric.

Nervously, she ran her hands down her long and wavy chestnut brown locks that she'd released from their braids a couple of hours prior. Her hair looked good down, she noted. She looked older, more grown-up. It was perfect...for a miai.

"Sakuno? Are you ready yet?" Her grandmother called from downstairs.

"Coming Grandma," She called back before she grabbed her purse and her cell phone and left the room. Trotting down the stairs, she gave her grandmother a soft smile that conveyed much more ease at the whole situation than the older teen actually felt.

Her grandmother beamed at her, "You look lovely. Just like your mama."

Sakuno flushed with pleasure at the compliment.

The two women made their way to the entryway where they put their coats and shoes on before exiting their warm home into the crisp winter night.

In the back of her mind Sakuno continued to obsess over the slight brush of lips she'd shared with Ryoma-kun that morning. She really wanted to know how amazing a real kiss would be...

* * *

The next morning, Sakuno had her hair back up in its usual braids and she was frowning at Ryoma as he stood by her front gate. She wasn't ready to see him yet. She still had that slight brush of his lips on her mind and it took all of her energy not to kiss him just so she could satisfy her seriously piqued curiosity.

"Morning," He greeted as she made her way over to the gate.

Sakuno opened the gate, and stepped off her property. As she turned and closed the gate behind her she said, "Good morning, Ryoma-kun."

"Did you miss me last night?" He teased.

Sakuno flushed, "Don't tease me!"

He grabbed her hand, enveloping it in his own, his warmth instantly spreading into her, "Don't be sad. Soon we'll be together every night."

" _Ryoma-kun!"_ She exclaimed, completely scandalized. How dare he talk to her that way? Even worse, she still found herself fantasizing for about the ten thousandth time since the previous morning what it would really be like to be like that with Ryoma-kun...

He snickered to himself for a few seconds and then asked, "How was the meeting then?"

Sakuno frowned as her thoughts shifted to the meeting the night before with Fuji-senpai and stared at the ground as they walked along on their way to school.

Seeing her frown, Ryoma sent a triumphant smile at the gray clouds overhead.

"You turned him down," He stated as he looked to her for confirmation.

Part of her was hoping he would give up on marrying her and to her horror a much larger part of her was terrified that he would as she reluctantly shook her head no.

"You didn't tell him no?" Ryoma asked.

She shook her head again.

He squeezed her hand, "Why not?"

She looked up then and meeting his eyes said, "I have to try for Grandma."

Ryoma made a sound of disapproval and pulled them to a stop. Sakuno looked up at him, wondering what it would be this time.

He grasped her other hand and pulled her towards him. Holding both of her hands with his between their chests he said, "Try with me."

Sakuno blushed and shook her head, looking down at their hands. She furiously tried to stamp down the mounting feelings welling up inside of her that wanted to just love him and be with him.

"I can't," She whispered.

Ryoma rubbed her hands for a moment and said, "Why? Because you really like me?"

Sakuno's head shot up, her eyes meeting his with panic showing clearly behind them. She could swear she felt her heart drop into her feet. Her whole face displayed utter shock and disbelief.

_Surely, Ryoma-kun hadn't just said to her that she liked him._

Stunned, Sakuno stood there like a dummy, her mouth dropped open, her eyes blank, her mind spinning out of control, her heart racing frantically.

_There's no way he knows..._

Finally, Ryoma sent her the self confident smirk he would send to an opponent just before he would beat them.

_HE KNOWS HE KNOWS HE KNOWS HE KNOWS HE KNOWS HE KNOWS_

It scrolled across her mind in a big bright neon marquee. As her heart dropped out of her body with dread and her mind whirled around like she'd been flying around on a merry-go-round at top speed, her legs turned to jelly and she dropped onto her knees.

The shock of the impact with the rough uneven concrete broke her from her panicked stupor. "Ouch," She hissed under her breath. Her knees were on fire, she was positive she'd just scraped them up something terrible. She yanked her hands from Ryoma's grip above her head and tried to push herself up slightly to get her knees off the pavement.

Ryoma looked down in surprise at Sakuno's slumped over form, "Sakuno? What are you doing?" _This girl of his was so clumsy, she even managed to fall down when he was holding on to her._

That was when he heard her soft sounds of pain. He knelt down and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Oi, are you hurt?"

He was met with a teary-eyed face and instantly sprung into action. He reached his arms down and easily lifted her up from the ground.

"Ryoma-kun! What are you doing?" She asked as she threw her arms around his shoulders, frightened that he would drop her.

He looked at her bloody knees and grimaced. _Only his Sakuno could manage to hurt herself so effortlessly._ "I'm taking you home so we can fix those scrapes. Why did you fall down?"

Sakuno pouted at her legs, "Ah..."

Not waiting for an answer, Ryoma turned around and started briskly walking back toward the Ryuzaki residence.

Sakuno tried not to think too much about the fact that Ryoma-kun was carrying her home, and even more so not to think about the question he'd asked her that caused her to fall down.

Unfortunately for her, his question still whirled away in her mind on repeat.

_Because you really like me?_

_You like me..._

_like me..._

_like..._

Arriving back at Sakuno's house Ryoma pounded on the front door once again with his foot. Once again Ryuzaki Sumire opened her door to the sight of her granddaughter in Ryoma's arms.

"Oh what is it this time?" The older lady asked.

Ryoma cracked a slight grin as he nodded in the direction of Sakuno's bloody knees.

Sumire shook her head as she moved out of the way. She led the couple into the living room as she procured a towel from the linen closet. She began tucking the towel on top of the sofa as she fussed, "I bet you fell down because your head is still not right from hitting it the other night. I knew you should have stayed home today. It's a good thing Ryoma was walking with you to school, what would have happened if you'd passed out and been on your own? Huh?"

At the end of her rant, Sumire turned towards the couple and gestured for Ryoma to place Sakuno down on the sofa she'd just prepared as a makeshift bed.

"Sorry Grandma," Sakuno apologized softly, her voice sounding sad and defeated as Ryoma gently placed her down on the sofa. Sakuno allowed her mind to briefly regret the loss of Ryoma's warmth. It had been nice having his arms wrapped around her as he'd carried her the fairly short distance back home.

Sumire was already off to get the medical kit to clean up Sakuno's scrapes, so she barely registered Sakuno's apology.

Sakuno sighed as she fixed her skirt and then glanced above her where Ryoma hovered.

Their eyes locked.

The corner of Ryoma's mouth quirked up.

Sakuno flushed at his subtle reminder that he thought she liked him and looked back down at her scraped up knees. Giving one of them an experimental poke, she hissed and commented, "I hurt them pretty bad."

Sumire bustled back into the living room and shoved the medical kit into Ryoma's hands. She started listing off instructions as she went into the kitchen to retrieve a couple of ice packs.

"I have to get to work, so Ryoma..." She paused to look at the young man that had just settled on the edge of the sofa below Sakuno's knees.

Ryoma had just opened the medical kit, but he looked up at hearing his name called.

Knowing she had his attention, Sumire continued calling through the house, "I'm counting on you to take care of Sakuno for me today. She needs to rest. Keep some ice on her head." She closed the freezer and began making her way back into the living room, "Make sure her head is okay like you did on Saturday."

"Grandma, I'm fine!" Sakuno interrupted irritably.

Sumire ignored the protest and placed one of the ice packs on Sakuno's head as she pushed her shoulders down, trying to get the young woman to lay back. Sakuno eased onto her back at the subtle push, and grabbed at the ice pack with her hand that was closest to the couch's back, but protested again all the same, "I swear, I'm fine. This is really too much!"

Sumire ignored Sakuno's protests yet again and instead placed the other ice pack near her granddaughter's knees and gave further instructions to Ryoma, who was in the middle of meticulously cleaning her wounds, "After you get her knees bandaged up, try to get her to sleep, but wake her up every couple of hours or so. I'll let the school know that neither of you will be in today, okay?"

Ryoma nodded distractedly as he dabbed some hydrogen peroxide on one of Sakuno's knees.

Sakuno let out a hiss of protest at the stinging coming from her leg.

Sumire turned back to Sakuno and dropped a kiss on her forehead, "Don't worry child, Ryoma will take good care of you today, you just focus on resting. Try not to think about everything, it's probably part of it, the stress of making these decisions, and for that I'm really sorry, so no miai thoughts today, okay?"

Sakuno's jaw dropped in shock. _What was that supposed to mean?_ Before she could even formulate a reply, her grandmother had left the house, locking the door behind her. She heard the car start and drive off down the street, and then hissed and sat up once again as Ryoma dabbed hydrogen peroxide on her other knee, "That hurts!"

Ryoma snickered a bit before he blew gently on the wound, speeding up the drying process of the hydrogen peroxide that he knew was the source of her pain. Satisfied that it was dry enough, he dabbed a bit of antibiotic ointment on her knee and covered it with a large bandage. He grabbed the ice pack and placed it across her knees and then leaned back over Sakuno's calves and admired his work. Both of her knees were now clean and bandaged. Much better.

"So...why did you fall down?" He asked yet again.

Sakuno similarly flushed again, remembering his question about if she really liked him and then pouted, "I lost my balance."

"I was holding on to you."

She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "My legs gave out."

An eyebrow quirked up, "Ah."

Sakuno looked away from him, and glared at her blank television screen, wondering how she could get out of having this conversation. She laid back against the sofa arm and moaned, "Maybe Grandma is right and it's my head."

"Hnnnn," Ryoma stood slightly and took a step closer to her head before he sat on the top of the kotatsu. He grabbed the end of her braid that was laying closest to him. Yanking the tie on the end off, he began to unbind her hair.

"What are you doing?" Sakuno asked as she watched his fingers wind though her hair effortlessly releasing the braided strands.

"If your head hurts, you shouldn't have your hair bound so tightly, right?"

"Ah...un..." She agreed. Grabbing the end of her other braid she made quick work of undoing it as Ryoma continued to take his time with her other braid.

He got closer and closer to her scalp and she watched his movements out of the corners of her eyes, wondering why he was working his fingers through her hair so slowly, and yet enjoying the sensation more than she could have ever imagined she would enjoy a man touching her hair. Finally, he moved his fingers back and forth against her scalp, releasing the last strands from the weave she'd done up so tightly that morning. Sakuno closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep herself from moaning aloud.

_Wow...that felt amazing._ She felt like she could nod off into a blissful dream state...

"Sakuno..."

"Hmmm?" She cracked her eyes open and observed how close his face was to hers.

His hand grasped the side of her head, her hair splayed through his fingers as he gently massaged her scalp, "I'm going to kiss you now, so don't move away this time."

_Hmmm? Kiss...?_ As her mind finally registered his words, his mouth had already connected with her slightly open one. Her world tilted on it's side and melted away as she felt the pressure of his lips increase. Before she knew what she was doing, she'd pressed her lips back against his and grabbed onto his shoulders, pulling him closer. She felt his tongue brush against her bottom lip and without even thinking about it she opened her mouth to him and reveled in the myriad of sensations that overtook her body, mind and being.

_It was like magic._

As Ryoma felt Sakuno's mouth open for him with invitation, he greedily delved into her mouth, savoring every corner of it as if the world was ending. She started making these cute sounds in the back of her throat and he pushed further, instantly wanting more.

_Why had he waited so many years to kiss her?_

He moved off of the kotatsu, and onto the couch. Slightly lying over her, he cupped the side of her face with his hand and continued to kiss her like his life depended on it.

More, more, more he wanted more. _He wanted so much more._

As his left hand moved from the top of the back of the couch where he'd placed it to lever his body above hers and towards her chest, he caught himself and pulled away from her. He moved to the opposite end of the couch, catching his breath, his mind going a mile a minute from start to finish. Things he'd never really thought of much before suddenly becoming a reality that he wanted desperately.

_This...this...was more complicated than he'd considered._

Sakuno had her fingers against her lips as she stared across the sofa at him, barely even blinking, her mind obviously a million miles away as he furiously fought himself to calm down.

It was both of theirs first kiss as far as he knew, the last thing they needed was for him to rush the rest. He grabbed at the front of his shirt as his heart squeezed.

Maybe he shouldn't have kissed her. _If she didn't agree to marry him now, he might die._

Everything...everything...had just become...oh...so much more.


	11. Eleven

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Eleven

* * *

Echizen Ryoma sat on the end of the couch in the Ryuzaki living room with Ryuzaki Sakuno on the other end of the couch and stared at her as his mind desperately tried to process all the emotions and feelings that had suddenly flooded his mind and body.

_This was going to be a problem._

This... _stuff_ was more involved than he'd realized. He really hadn't expected to _feel all this stuff._ If he kissed her again, he would definitely have a hard time not doing other things that would get him into trouble, like putting his hands under her top, or her skirt, or anywhere else he decided he wanted to touch her. _That could be bad_ , because it had been hella difficult to even get her to let him kiss her, let alone those other things. If he so much as touched her right now, even innocently on her busted up knee, he'd just run his fingers higher and higher and then...

_He needed to stop thinking about it._

She hadn't agreed to marry him yet, and he needed her to agree to marry him. He shouldn't be thinking this far ahead yet, what if they had a baby? He shook his head to wash the thought out of his mind of Sakuno sitting courtside with a Ryoma junior bouncing up and down excitedly on her lap.

_They were definitely too young for that!_

Even though he knew he wanted to marry her. Even though he wanted to do things that made...well, they would just have to get some birth control, but first of all, he needed her to change her mind about marrying him.

Granny had been right. _Sakuno liked him._ Maybe it was as simple as she wouldn't marry him because she liked him. That had to be the truth. She wouldn't have kissed him like that if she didn't like him. She wouldn't kiss anybody if she didn't like them, he was sure of it. So she wouldn't kiss anybody except for him because she liked him, right?

She would definitely call off the other miai now. She would have to, right? Maybe she would at least admit she was his girlfriend now? Which went right back into not helping him at all with his current problem.

_He wanted so much more from her now than he'd ever really dreamed of wanting from anybody._

Sakuno was pretty, he'd always thought she was pretty, the day he'd first seen her he'd thought as much. So he'd always kind-of liked her, it just hadn't really been his priority in his life to pursue it. It wasn't his focus, it was just this...thing.

_He'd taken her for granted._

Sakuno hadn't shown any interest in anybody else, which in retrospect he felt would have spurred him into action sooner. Unfortunately, he hadn't really thought of it before the miai discussion with his parents, but if Sakuno had even so much as blushed at another boy, he probably would have staked some sort of a claim on her when they'd been younger.

_But right now, if she would kiss him like that...then that meant..._

_He wasn't too late._

In retrospect, he was sure that he would have been with her sooner or later because _it had always been Sakuno._ On occasion he'd been privy to his friends talking about girls, or their girlfriends over the years, and it had always caused his mind to wander into thinking about Sakuno. It had seemed natural that he'd think of her when thinking about girls at all, but he'd never gone as far as the whole love, marriage, and babies thoughts. The most he'd ever really thought about was kissing her, and it had been fleeting thoughts at best because he hadn't been interested in romance and girls, but now that he had kissed her...it made him want so much more.

_He wanted everything._

He wanted everything now. He wanted everything yesterday. He wanted everything forever.

He never would have expected his reaction to be so intense. _He was absolutely crazy about this girl._ That must be why his chest kept giving him pain! He wanted her to never leave his side ever again. He wasn't even satisfied with just kissing anymore, and with how she'd been tiptoeing around him for the last week, he knew she would scare off easily. He needed to take things slow, but...

_Could they even take things slower?_

They were already moving at snail's pace, weren't they? He'd been interested in her for almost six years before he'd even figured that much out and acted on kissing her. Would it be another six years before he could do more than kiss her?

Why did it have to be so complicated?

Couldn't she see the same happy future he could? If she _liked_ him then _why_ wouldn't she just _marry_ him? How did telling him no even make sense? _Why was this even a problem? Why were girls so complicated?_

What was he going to do from now on? If he couldn't even kiss her without knowing he'd push for more...would it ever work out? Was he now forced into either scaring her away or pushing her away? How could he get her to sign the marriage document? What would it take for her to just admit she wanted it just as much as he did?

He balled his hands into fists and refrained from giving into the enormous impulse he had to rock forward and lay on top of her so he could devour every delicious inch of her.

What was he going to do with her _all day?_

_This would be torture._ He needed to get her to agree to marry him now more than ever.

Damn.

Ryuzaki Sakuno on the other hand, sat on the other end of the couch in her living room with bandages and an ice pack across her knees, an ice pack on top of her head, and freshly kissed lips.

She stared dumbly across the couch at the love of her life.

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

She'd been caught so off guard she hadn't realized his intentions even after he'd told them to her plainly and before she'd even known it, all she could taste was Ryoma-kun.

Her heart gave a squeeze and she took in a deep breath.

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

It was a dream. It was her best dream come to life. It was a waking fantasy, it was everything she'd ever desired. It was all she'd ever wanted and more.

It...it was amazing. It was all consuming, it had brought her to life, it had zipped unending energy throughout her very being. She could feel herself glowing. It started in the center of her chest and spread out to her arms, her legs, her feet, her eyes. It was everywhere, this wonderful feeling that had erupted from within her.

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

Did that mean he liked her? Did that mean it was okay to marry him? Would she be able to live out her happy ever after with Ryoma-kun? Was that really possible?

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

Why? Why did he do that? Was he trying to get his way, or did he really mean it? Did he like it? Did he want to kiss her again? Would he ever kiss her again? Was he done with her now? Did he think of this as a victory of some sorts and he would now stop pursuing her for the miai?

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

She was ruined! She could never kiss anybody else after that! If Ryoma-kun didn't want her now, her life was over. Nobody would marry a girl that couldn't kiss them. What about all those other things married couples did?

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

How amazing would it be to have him touch her some more? If just his lips against hers could make her feel this way, how would it feel if he kissed her in other places? What would his hands feel like against her bare skin? What did his body feel like? Would it be warm everywhere? What would all those muscles of his feel like underneath her fingertips? How would he react if she were to touch him? Would he like it? Would he want her to touch him softly, or hard? Or in between? If she married him...it would mean...everything...

_Ryoma-kun had just kissed her._

That was that! She could never get married now! She would never know what it feels like to be loved that way! _She couldn't have a real marriage with Ryoma-kun and now nobody else would do._ Even if it was just a kiss, it was an amazing, life-changing kiss, and now she could never have another man place his lips against hers without comparing them.

_Nobody else could ever live up to this._

Ryoma-kun was...was...he was the moon, and he'd brushed against her on his way to the sky, but she couldn't get to the sky to be with him.

And there were all those stars in the sky with him...

Sakuno rolled onto her side with a groan, and closed her eyes. _It was done._ She might as well go out and start buying cats because she would be an old maid. She would take care of Grandma, she would cheer Ryoma-kun on through the television, she would probably even take care of Uncle and Auntie when they got old, but she would never marry. She would have a simple job, maybe working with children like a grade school teacher, and she would go out and have tea with Tomo-chan once a week, living vicariously through her. Maybe in her older age after retirement she would travel around the world and watch the moon from all over the earth, wishing she could have been a star in the sky with the moon.

_What was she going to tell Grandma?_

"Is your head bothering you again?" Ryoma asked at hearing her groan.

Sakuno warily glanced down the sofa at him from the sides of her eyes before answering softly, "I'm fine." She then burrowed her face deeper into the back cushions of the sofa, wishing the large piece of furniture would simply swallow her up.

_Fine. Don't talk about it._

He'd wanted to plainly discuss everything else under the sun this past week, but now that he'd gone and kissed her, he was going to act as if that wasn't the biggest deal in their lives, ever? Really? Well, maybe it wasn't the biggest thing in his life, seeing as how _he's Echizen Ryoma, the prodigy tennis star,_ but as for her...well...this was beyond monumental.

What did it mean? What was he going to do now? What was she going to do now? What were they going to do now?

_When would he kiss her again?_

With a slight huff of frustration, Sakuno closed her eyes and willed herself to rest. She was staying home from school today to rest her head, so she might as well get that rest.

_...if she could ever fall asleep after...that..._

Her mind raced some more.

Ryoma reached behind him and lifted up Sakuno's socked feet so he could move his back into the back of the couch. Placing Sakuno's feet on his lap, he absently rubbed his left hand against the top of her socks as he turned on the television and flipped idly through the channels with his right.

It would be just like Saturday. He could do this. He could spend the whole day home alone with Sakuno without doing... _anything else._

Really. He had this under control.

Sakuno finally dozed off, and Ryoma watched a couple of shows before he also fell asleep. Sakuno woke up a couple of hours later, close to noon. She took in Ryoma's slumped over form at the end of the couch. He still had his arm wrapped around her lower legs and feet, while his upper half leaned into the armrest to his right.

She gently sat up to get a closer look at the sleeping tennis prince.

_He was sooo cute._

Why did he have to be so amazing? At everything...from looks, to smarts, to athletics? How could someone so ordinary like her ever really get his interest? It seemed so unbelievable to her, and yet _he'd kissed her_ that morning and her whole world had changed. She brushed her fingers against her lips, remembering the feel of his soft lips pressed against her own. Her heart fluttered at the memory and she bit her lip to keep herself from giggling out loud and waking him up.

_Ryoma-kun had kissed her!_

She recalled how his eyes had flashed with something intense when he'd pulled away. If she only knew what it was. If she only knew what he was thinking...

If only...it was all real...if only...her dreams were really coming true...

But...all she could really focus on was if there would be more kissing anytime soon. He seemed to have instantly turned her into some sort of raving obsessed woman, and now she felt like in her whole life, even if by some miracle he really fell in love with her and they got married, that _she could never have her fill of him._ She would always want more of him. Always, always...

This extraordinary boy that captivated her.

Ryoma suddenly jerked awake. His body had woken him just before he'd toppled over. In a daze, he opened his eyes and took in his surroundings, reminding himself he was over at Sakuno's place that day so he could watch her. His head whipped to the side and he was surprised to see Sakuno sitting up, her face only about a foot away from his, her lower legs and feet still resting in his lap, a soft smile on her face.

"Sakuno..."

"Did you have a good nap?" She asked.

He nodded as he lifted his hand up to cover a big yawn, "How's your head?"

Sakuno shrugged, "I thought it was fine before, and it feels fine now, but Grandma thinks I might still have something wrong since she wanted me to stay home. I feel like I'm just wasting time. Don't you? I mean, we have finals next week! We should really be at school."

Ryoma took her venting in stride, "One day isn't a big deal. Besides, I can help you study."

"Really?"

Ryoma raised an eyebrow at that. What was up with that? The girl acted like he hadn't helped her study every end of term since their first year of middle school. He gave her a nonplussed glance, "Don't I always?"

Sakuno flushed slightly, "Yes, yes. Sorry Ryoma-kun, you are a good friend."

Irritated that she'd used the word _friend_ to refer to him yet again, Ryoma grazed his fingers up her bare calf and rubbed the back of her knee.

_He was so not her damn friend and she needed to remember that._

He watched her eyes widen as they watched his hand's progress. As she lifted her head back up and opened her mouth to lecture him he said, "How do your knees feel?"

She shut her mouth and visibly drooped. He could tell he'd taken the fight right out of her and smirked to himself.

_She was too easy._

He'd always enjoyed that about her. It made being in her company an enjoyable experience, which was more than he could say for every other female on the planet, his mother included. His mother liked to lecture him more than anybody, and all other girls were downright annoying, but Sakuno was special. He supposed Granny wasn't too bad either, having her as his grandmother after he married Sakuno really wouldn't be a bad deal.

Sakuno poked her knees experimentally before she looked back up at him. Her lips formed a half frown before she replied, "I'm not sure, they don't hurt as much. I think they stopped bleeding after you put the bandages on."

Ryoma leaned back against the couch and said, "So...you want to get some lunch?"

* * *

 


	12. Twelve

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Twelve

* * *

Ryuzaki Sakuno (17, almost 18 years old) has fallen into a very awkward position.

_Is it possible to go out to get lunch with Echizen Ryoma during school hours?_

She didn't think so...

Like everything else she ever voiced to the prince of tennis, her concerns fell on deaf ears. He was already at the entrance to her home, stuffing his feet back into his sneakers.

"Ryoma-kun," she began yet again.

"Can't you get up?" Ryoma asked impatiently from her doorway.

Sakuno swung her legs off the side of the couch, and wobbled to her feet, "Ryoma-kun, I don't think we can go out."

Ryoma's head peered around the corner of the wall, "You can't walk?"

Sakuno shook her head, "I think I can, but-"

"Hurry up then, I'm starving."

 _Boys and their stomachs!_ Had Ryoma-kun always been this way about food? Would he always be this way about food? If they got married, would she be constantly dragged around to get food with him?

Why was she thinking about _that?_

Sakuno slowly made her way to the entrance as she tried yet again, "Ryoma-kun, we're in our school uniforms."

Ryoma looked down at his school issued jacket and pants.

Damn. She was right.

He stripped his jacket off quickly and tossed it on top of the shoe cabinet, then he untucked his shirt and rolled the sleeves up, "There."

"Ryoma-kun! It's too cold outside to not wear your jacket!" Sakuno fussed.

Ryoma shook his head, "I'll be fine."

"I'm still in my uniform," Sakuno protested.

He nodded towards the stairs, "Go change then. If anybody asks, we'll tell them we work together and we're on a lunch date."

Sakuno flushed at his use of the term date for their lunch outing, but without further protest she turned around and headed up the stairs to change out of her school uniform.

It would be okay...right? They were old enough that so long as they weren't wearing their uniforms, they wouldn't be caught wandering around during school hours...right?

Entering her bedroom, Sakuno opened up her closet and searched for something that made her look slightly older. She wished her outfit she'd worn to see Fuji-senpai in last night was clean since she felt it was her most respectable outfit, but she still managed to rummage together a skirt and sweater. As she pulled on her coat and checked for a verdict in the mirror, she noticed her hair was still down. With a sigh she made her way to the bathroom, where she removed her flower hair clip and brushed out her long chestnut waves until they fell around her in soft, tamed waves.

She slowly walked back down the stairs, only wincing a few times at the pains in her now scabbed over knees. It felt like the bandages were tearing her flesh off a couple of times, and she debated on removing the bandages all together, but figured it would be too early to do that and would only expose her injuries to infections.

After grabbing her cell phone, her keys and her purse, she slid her feet into her favorite leather mary janes and exited the house.

Ryoma was standing on the porch, looking off into the distance. You would never tell how cold it was outside looking at him, but Sakuno had a feeling he'd be wishing for a jacket at some point.

"Took you long enough," He grouched as he heard her slam the door closed and lock it behind her. He took the three steps down the doorstep and then turned around to watch her and caught his breath.

_Her hair was down._

Granted, her hair had been down from the braids ever since he'd started undoing them that morning after she'd first fallen down, but it had been more of a disheveled mess than the wavy locks that were surrounding her frame at present. He'd known this girl for almost six full years, and he could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen her in anything besides twin braids flowing down her back.

It was beautiful.

He always wished she wore it down like this more often whenever he saw it, and yet he was happy somehow that she didn't so that other boys didn't notice and chase after her.

"Your hair's too long." His old taunting phrase slipped out of his mouth before he even realized he said it, and just as she'd always done in the past, Sakuno flushed and pouted before rebutting him.

"My hair is not too long!"

She still didn't understand what he was thinking when he told her that.

He wanted to kiss the pout right off of her mouth, so he abruptly turned away from her and made his way out of the yard, holding the gate open for Sakuno to follow him. _Absolutely no more kissing!_

"You aren't cold, Ryoma-kun?" She asked as they made their way down the street. Sakuno could see the warm air from their mouths forming little clouds in the air around them before it quickly dissipated, and she felt that it must be very cold. Especially for December. She wondered idly if it meant they would get a good snow that year.

Ryoma stuffed his hands into his pants' pockets and shrugged, "Maybe I should buy a jacket?"

Sakuno's face lit up at that, "You want to go to the mall?"

_So she liked shopping...?_

"Sure."

She wound her arm around his elbow then and pushed her warmth into his side. Ryoma tried not to be overly surprised that she'd initiated such intimate contact and looked across the street so she wouldn't notice the smile on his face that would give away how happy it made him. _This was progress!_ He listened as she began to excitedly tell him about the great stores at the mall and how there was a wonderful restaurant on the eighth floor.

They made their way to the subway and jumped on the line heading towards Ginza. Ryoma warmed from the heat underground generated by the trains, and Sakuno's presence by his side. He hoped that even after he managed to buy himself a coat that she'd still grasp onto his arm the way she'd been ever since he'd first brought up shopping.

He couldn't believe they were ditching school like this. Granny would be so pissed if she found out. It was an experience though, a shared high school experience with his future wife, and he was sure he would never forget it. It was something so ordinary compared to his usual extraordinary lifestyle, and it felt really good to feel like a normal teenager going out on a date with his girlfriend.

As they exited the train at the station for the mall and headed topside, Sakuno remained tucked into his side, and Ryoma decided he shouldn't wear jackets at all anymore so Sakuno would hold him. Maybe he shouldn't..."Ne, maybe I shouldn't get a jacket?"

Sakuno's face fell with immediate disappointment.

"Forget it, I should get one."

She started glowing once again.

Girls were really complicated, weren't they?

By the time they made their way into the large mall building, Ryoma was actually happy to be out of the elements. It was the warmest part of the day since it was early afternoon, and even though Sakuno had stayed glued to his side, he still felt the chill. The warmth from the heaters in the building hit him as he opened the door and he decided he should definitely buy a jacket there before they left later when it would be even colder outside.

Sakuno tried to steer Ryoma towards the fifth floor where the men's wear was immediately, but he was quick to remind her that he'd been starving before they even left her house. So they made their way to the eighth floor where most of the restaurants were located. It wasn't long before they were seated at the sushi bar enjoying a bowl of edamame.

As Ryoma was savoring the last piece of their first platter that he'd powered through he said, "This is nice."

Sakuno coughed as she tried to hold back the giggle that had burst forth from his comment while she still had a piece of sushi in her mouth. She grabbed for her green tea and took a gulp of it, washing the food down before she said, "Ryoma-kun really likes food."

He shook his head, "It's good to be out doing something normal."

Sakuno bit the corner of her lip for a second before she said, "I don't understand."

Ryoma shrugged, "All I do is tennis."

Sakuno's jaw dropped. As she shot Ryoma a look of horror she exclaimed, "You love tennis!"

Ryoma snickered for a second as he nodded, "Un, but I wanted to go pro after high school, not right now. Most of high school has been preparing for or going to one of the grand slam tournaments after another. I wanted a normal high school experience. So being out with you, having lunch...it's nice."

Sakuno tilted her head to the side and mulled over what Ryoma said. Finally she said, "I had no idea."

Ryoma shrugged again, "It's not like I advertise what I'm thinking." She giggled again as he leaned over towards her and said quietly, "But it's okay with you."

She blushed as their eyes locked together and she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. He was really close to her...

"I get burgers with Momo-senpai sometimes, but it always becomes a competition on who can eat more...going out with you is different. I wish we had done this before," He said as he pulled away and then took a sip of his tea.

Sakuno gave a slight huff of irritation at Ryoma's subtle reminder to her that they'd had almost six years of lack of dates despite multiple opportunities, "That's because Ryoma-kun never asked."

He turned his head to the side to look at her and with a knowing smirk he said more than asked, "So _you would have_ gone out with me if I asked you."

Sakuno felt her whole body heat up with a blushing attack and buried her face into her hands. _Why had she said that?_ She could hear Ryoma snickering again at her embarrassment. Irritated with his teasing she dropped her hands and shot him a dirty look, "I guess we'll never know."

Ryoma choked back a laugh which caused Sakuno to start giggling.

She was a terrible liar. He was so on to her. _Ryoma-kun definitely knew that she liked him._ At that realization part of her felt free, and another part of her fluttered with nervous anticipation. Now that he knew...what would happen?

After lunch they made their way to the fifth floor where they shopped for a nice jacket for Ryoma. Sakuno was surprised to see him beeline for the leather jackets. As he stuffed his arms into the first one he pulled off the rack Sakuno joined him and commented, "I never imagined Ryoma-kun wearing a leather jacket."

He raised an eyebrow and leaning in closer to her he whispered into her ear, "What have you imagined me in?"

Realizing her wording came out wrong at his teasing, Sakuno blushed and smacked her hand against his chest, "Ryoma-kun!"

"You said it."

"You know I didn't mean _that!"_

"How would I know?"

Sakuno covered her face with her hands and stomped her foot into the floor, "Mou! Ryoma-kun is embarrassing me again!" Taking her hands away from her face, she waved her hands in his direction and said, "I just always think of you wearing sports jackets."

Ryoma's grin fell as he said, "Ah."

Noticing his mood change Sakuno stepped closer. Putting a hand against his sleeve as he looked in the mirror to check the jacket out she asked, "Did I say something wrong?"

Ryoma's eyes met hers in the mirror before he said, "I always wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle."

Sakuno's face registered surprise, "You did?"

He nodded.

Ryoma was turning eighteen next week, so it was going on two years now that he could have done as much and hadn't. She lightly brushed her fingers against the soft leather at his shoulder, "Why haven't you done it yet?"

Ryoma grimaced, "Haven't had the time."

Sakuno closed her eyes briefly. Wow. She could barely believe it was happening, but now that he was opening up to her, she was starting to understand Ryoma better. She was starting to appreciate what his life was really like, not just her perception of his life from her years of observation. Suddenly, she felt more connected to him than she ever had before. As with anything in her relationship with the tennis prince, she simply didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Ryoma-kun, if you didn't want to do the grand slam tournaments before high school, how did you end up doing them?"

"The old man wanted me to do it."

"So you just did it?"

A shrug, "It wasn't that bad."

She nodded in understanding. Ryoma-kun was as amazing as ever at tennis, and she was pretty sure once he joined the ATP he would hit the world's number one rank in a very short time. Anything regarding tennis wouldn't really be something one would have to twist his arm to do, even if it wasn't his preference. After all, he'd even done that doubles match with Momo-senpai back in their first year of middle school.

"Well then, I think you should definitely get a leather jacket," She declared.

Ryoma suppressed a chuckle at her sudden enthusiasm, and then gave her a slight smile of appreciation for her unfailing support she gave him in everything.

 _This was exactly why she needed to be his wife._ Who else that knew him really cared so much about him beyond his tennis? Family didn't really count, especially considering how tennis obsessed his whole family is. His friends all played tennis. Sakuno played tennis, but he'd known from the day he first met her that his tennis was secondary to her friendship. _She was genuine.  
_

He just didn't have that many genuine people in his life. She needed to stay with him always. He always wanted her with him. How could she not want to always be with him? She liked him...so didn't that mean she felt the same way?

After trying on a few more jackets, Ryoma finally picked his favorite one that fit him best and made his purchase. Taking the bag from the cashier, he turned to his side towards Sakuno and said, "We should get back before Granny finds out we left."

Sakuno's eyes widened before she frantically dug through her purse for her cell phone to check the time. Ryoma knew the time, but he enjoyed watching her freak out over nothing, so he didn't say anything and instead pulled his new jacket from the bag and began removing the tags so he could wear it immediately. Sakuno finally found her phone and visibility sagged with relief.

"Ryoma-kun, you scared me, we still have a couple of hours before Grandma gets home."

"It's going to take some time to get back," He replied as he put his jacket on and began heading out of the building.

Sakuno quickly followed.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Ryuzaki Sumire entered her home to find Ryoma and Sakuno cuddled up together on her sofa watching television.

"How was your day?" She asked the teenagers.

"It was good," Sakuno replied while Ryoma gave her a smirk.

"How does your head feel?"

Sakuno moved her head from side to side for a moment before she said, "I think I'm all better."

"Good. Ryoma, don't make her fall off the doorstep anymore, okay?"

"That was not my fault," He quickly denied.

Sakuno flushed before she muttered something under her breath that Sumire couldn't hear.

Ryoma, on the other hand grinned, her words instantly repeating themselves in his mind...

" _Yes it was."_

* * *

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

Ryuzaki Sakuno had made a big decision yesterday.

_She would never get married._

It was going to break Grandma's heart when she told her, but at this point, she didn't feel like she had any other options.

Ryoma-kun had held her hand. He'd taken her out on dates.

_He'd kissed her._

Even though he hadn't kissed her a second time, she was done for. There would be no more kissing for her. Nope. There was just no way. Ryoma-kun had kissed her and he'd _ruined_ her for anybody else. She could never kiss another guy after _that_. After Ryoma-kun's perfect, wonderful, life-changing, earth-shattering, magic-making _kiss._

Therefore, she couldn't get married.

After all, who would want to marry someone that couldn't kiss them? She could only kiss Ryoma-kun now, and that didn't seem to be happening again. Unless...she married Ryoma-kun...

_But..._

She _couldn't_ marry Ryoma-kun in an unfeeling, unloving, obligatory miai! Which was all she would ever get from him because _..._

_He didn't love her._

That was the heart of the matter. Ryoma-kun didn't love her, so he would never ask her to marry him for real. For love, for companionship, for romance, for adoration, for wants, for needs, for desires...well, for all those things normal people got married for. She could never marry Ryoma-kun if he didn't love her completely, utterly, devastatingly, and most ardently...that is...if he didn't love her the way she loved and adored him.

If she did give in and marry him simply for the sake of some arrangement made by his parents and her grandmother, it would _kill_ her.

To be bound to Ryoma-kun in holy marriage, and not share in the most wonderful perfect sacred love with him _would kill her._ To be with him always, intimately, sharing a life with him, having babies with him, making a home, a family, memories...day in and day out, and not have that bond of love with him...

_It would destroy her._

Completely. _  
_

She _had_ to protect her heart. It was all she had left...as broken as it already was, and would always be, at least it wasn't destroyed.

It was simple really. After kissing Ryoma-kun, it cemented in her mind what she'd already known all along...

For her...Ryuzaki Sakuno...it was Ryoma-kun or nothing. He was the love of her life. She had known it before, and thought somehow, she could live without him, that she could manage somehow having a life of contentment with someone else she would settle for.

But after tasting Ryoma-kun and knowing what she would be missing...there was no going back. It was now Ryoma-kun or nothing, there was no settling.

But Ryoma-kun wasn't offering her Ryoma-kun. He was offering pretty enough and not annoying. He was offering her an obligation.

She didn't want to be his obligation.

She wanted to be the love of _his_ life.

So she was left with...nothing, and so...she would never get married.

It was a mess, that's what it was. Her life was completely over. At 17.

It _sucked._

Her decision was made though, so there was no use in stringing out this other miai with Fuji-senpai. She had to tell him as soon as possible. He'd been so great so far about everything that she felt like she needed to inform him of her new stand on marriage right away. It was the least she could do...after all, Fuji-senpai deserved _so much_ better.

So after school while she was waiting around for the boys' tennis practice to start, she pulled out her cell phone and made the call. Quickly enough, arrangements were made to meet up with her former schoolmate the following afternoon. With that, Sakuno decided to give marriage, love, and Fuji-senpai no further thought until the next day.

Instead, she thought about Ryoma-kun kissing her and wondered if it would ever happen again. After her grandmother had arrived home the previous evening, Ryoma-kun had headed home without further ado, and despite multiple opportunities he'd had to kiss her again, even with slight invitations from her that it was okay...

Nothing.

Was that really going to be it? Never married and only kissed one time in her life ever? She'd been kind-of hoping to at least enjoy a few more kisses from her prince before he was out of her life for good. Can't a girl have any fun in her 'going-to-be-lonely-for-the-rest-of-her-life,' life?

So after tennis practice as they walked home, her mind went round and round wondering if the BIG EVENT, (that is, a second kiss) would in fact, be coming or not when he dropped her off at her house. It was all she could do to keep from blushing the whole way home since her mind didn't seem capable of thinking of anything else. She couldn't even look at him for fear he would see the want clearly in her eyes and then he'd demand marriage and she just didn't know what she would do if that happened.

Well, she thought she did. She thought she would turn him down no matter what, but sometimes...she felt that resolve waver, and that was terrifying. So she guarded herself as much as possible while still frantically obsessing in her mind if she would get more yummy kisses from the love of her life or not.

So they trudged to her home in silence. Not that they were usually chatterboxes on their walks to and from school, but it was their general custom to talk at least a little bit with each other when they were traveling together on the sidewalks.

Not this... _silence._

By the time they got to her front gate, Sakuno was a spaz case in her head. She didn't know what to do! What should she do? How could she get her kiss without being obvious or even more embarrassing, by asking about it? As Sakuno turned the key in her doorknob and opened her front door, she pouted a bit that Ryoma hadn't stopped her yet. With the door slightly cracked open, she turned towards him...

_Last...chance..._

But Echizen Ryoma had already stepped off her doorstep and was giving her a wave over his back.

Defeated and exhausted from all the mental stress, Sakuno made her way into her house. She promptly kicked her shoes off, and made her way to her freezer to get some ice cream.

_Why was he acting this way now that she wanted to encourage him a little?_

Wednesday proved to be no better for poor Ryuzaki Sakuno. After a fitful night of tossing and turning in her sleep, she woke up with Ryoma's kiss on her mind. As she prepared for her day, she thought of nothing but how desperately she wanted to kiss him again. As she left her house when Ryoma arrived that morning, she flushed at seeing his face and fought off her urges to just _grab him and get it over with already!_

Of course, on the way to school, nothing happened yet again to Sakuno's dismay.

By the time school let out in the afternoon she was feeling rather sorry for herself and was looking forward somewhat to not being in Ryoma's company for that afternoon since she had her meeting with Fuji setup.

After school, she walked towards the boys' tennis club room with Ryoma, the same as she did everyday after class for the past week and a half. As he entered the room, she spun on her heel and made a mad dash for the shoe lockers. Quickly changing out of her school slippers and into her regular shoes, she made her way off the school campus before the boys' tennis practice had even begun.

Fifteen minutes later, she was greeted by her former senpai with a hug at her favorite little cafe.

"Sakuno, good to see you again," Fuji greeted.

Sakuno flushed at his hug, and wondered if breaking up with Fuji-senpai would be more difficult than she thought it would be.

_Maybe this was a bad idea._

At their marriage meeting, Fuji-senpai had been rightfully skeptical of a miai with Ryuzaki Sakuno. The girl was cute, he'd always thought so and admired her gentleness, but he had also always known that his cute little kohai was in love with his smart-ass little kohai, Echizen. So the idea of any real relationship with her beyond schoolmates and friendship was a completely foreign idea. Not one to beat around the bush on such an important topic as his own marriage, he'd immediately got right to the point with Sakuno when they'd finally been left alone by their families to talk about the miai.

"What about Echizen?"

Sakuno had coughed into her tea she'd been daintily sipping on when he threw the question at her.

"Ryoma-kun?" She'd asked after the coughing fit.

"You are in love with him still, aren't you?"

Sakuno's face had scrunched up cutely before she'd exploded, "Why does everybody think I'm in love with Ryoma-kun?"

Fuji had opened his eyes slightly, "Because you are. It's written all over your whole body. You might as well have his full name tattooed on your chest. I could tell it the first day I saw the two of you together back in middle school."

Sakuno had huffed and muttered something to herself before she said, "I barely even knew Ryoma-kun back then, there's no way I loved him already."

"But you do love him now."

Sakuno had shrugged noncommittally.

Fuji had waited a full two minutes before asking her again, "So what about Echizen?"

Sakuno had frowned into her tea cup for a moment before saying, "It's never going to work out with Ryoma-kun."

"How do you know that?"

A big sad sigh and then, "Grandma set up a miai with Ryoma-kun first."

Fuji had nodded his head, completely unsurprised.

"I said no."

"Why?"

"I said no before we even had our first meeting. There's no way I'm going to have an arranged marriage with Ryoma-kun!"

Fuji's eyes had opened completely then, immediately understanding the young woman sitting across from him, "Because you love him."

A slight nod, before a pathetic and defeated, "Yeah."

"So you love him...so what? How do you know it won't work out with Echizen?"

Fuji was almost immediately sorry he asked Sakuno as he watched the young woman sitting across from him crumple into a defeated mess, "He doesn't love me."

Not wanting to probe further than that, he took her look as the full explanation and closed the topic of Echizen. He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back and asked instead, "So then, what about me?"

Sakuno had finally looked up, her eyes meeting his opened ones. Her eyes widened a bit in surprise before turning soft and gentle, "I don't know. Grandma wants me to settle down. I promised I would try."

Fuji's eyes had closed again before he'd said, "I can live with that."

"You can?" Sakuno asked, honestly shocked a bit at how easy this conversation had been, considering...

"I can. We'll try it out, go on some dates, see if we get along well. I'm going to be really busy being a surgeon. It will be very difficult for me to meet any good women. Even right now, I'm so busy with school, I wouldn't know one if she hit me in the face. As long as you will promise me to be faithful and not cheat on me with Echizen...maybe we'll work out."

Sakuno had turned a darker shade of red than Fuji had ever seen her turn before, even though the girl had always blushed a lot, and then she'd burst out a scandalized, "Fuji-senpai!"

"What?" He asked in all innocence.

"I would never cheat!"

A sly grin, "I know. I just wanted to be clear with you what I expect from my wife."

Sakuno had flushed again as the word "wife" had slipped from his mouth with ease, though it was not as dark of a flush as she'd had at his comment about having an affair with the young tennis star. "Fine. Fuji-senpai, I agree to your terms," She'd said with a nod. After that she'd mumbled something else to herself that Fuji hadn't caught.

"Well then, you should start calling me Shusuke."

As the couple walked into the cafe three days later, Sakuno debated on actually calling him Shusuke or sticking with her usual address of his family name.

By the time they were seated at a table in the cafe, and browsing through the menu, Sakuno realized that her opportunity for a proper greeting had good and well passed, so she gave up on trying to figure out her awkward address.

After ordering their selections, Fuji sent a pleasant smile her way, "I wasn't expecting you to want to see me again so soon, Sakuno."

Sakuno fidgeted a bit before she confessed, "Ah, well, I needed to talk to you."

"So you said on the phone. So what is it? Don't leave me in suspense."

He was giving her that sly grin of his again and Sakuno wasn't sure what to make of it. Was this all just a game to Fuji-senpai or was he really taking her seriously? Had she really thought just a few days ago that she could seriously give him a shot at marriage? What had she been thinking? Had Ryoma-kun really scared her so much on Saturday that she'd willingly ran into Fuji-senpai's arms Sunday night?

"Well, you see, the thing is that-" She stopped as their waitress returned with their beverages.

They thanked their waitress politely and as she walked away Fuji prodded her again, "You were saying..."

"Right...well...you see, the thing is that-"

"Sakuno," Fuji interrupted, at she paused awkwardly, "You aren't already breaking up with me, are you?"

Sakuno visibly slumped. With a pout on her lips she whined, "Is it really that obvious?"

"So what happened, did Echizen sweep you off your feet?"

Sakuno's head had snapped up quickly as she flushed a bright red, "No! It's not-! It's not like that..."

"So what happened? I thought we agreed to give this an honest try."

Sakuno frowned. Finally with a gulp to chase down her nervousness she began, "On Monday-"

"And here are your treats!" Their waitress announced as she arrived at their table depositing a couple of small plates in front of them.

They both politely thanked their waitress again before Fuji prompted Sakuno to continue, "What happened on Monday?"

As Sakuno thought more and more about confessing the truth to her former senpai, she felt more and more silly. Could she really tell Fuji-senpai such a thing?

Defiantly she stuck her fork into her sweet cake and put the cake in her mouth. She chewed through it slowly as Fuji watched her across the table.

"Tell me."

Sakuno shook her head.

"You can't just tell me you're going to do a miai with me and then dump me three days later without an explanation. What am I going to tell my family?"

Sakuno took a deep breath, "I decided not to get married."

Fuji put his fork down, "At all?"

"At all."

"So you didn't start up with Echizen?" Fuji asked again.

Sakuno shook her head, "Well, the...the truth is..."

Fuji raised an eyebrow and Sakuno stopped.

"The truth is ever since last week, Ryoma-kun said he still wanted a miai with me."

"You said you told him no."

"Oh, I did! I mean, that hasn't changed. It's just that Ryoma-kun has it in his head we're going to get married anyways...and...and...mou...it's just that...he's causing problems for me."

Fuji took a sip of the strange drink he'd ordered before he said calmly, "I can fix that easily enough. I can talk to him."

Sakuno shook her head back and forth quickly, "Oh, but you can't! He doesn't understand!"

Fuji's look darkened, "What do you mean, he doesn't understand?"

Sakuno began rolling the corner of her napkin into a little ball before she finally confessed, "Well, he...he kissed me."

Fuji frowned and Sakuno was taken aback. She'd only seen him look that way a few times in all their years of acquaintance, and it had always scared her. The thing is...when Fuji-senpai made _that look_ it always meant bad things were coming for someone.

He stood up and dropped a few bills down on the table. Sakuno fretted as she quickly gathered her belongings to follow him.

Out on the street, Sakuno caught up with him. Grabbing at his elbow she asked alarmingly, "Where are you going?"

He glanced down at her before sharing, "To Seigaku to see Echizen."

"Oh...oh, please don't!"

"Why not? Don't I have the right?"

He...he did have the right! Mou! _What did she do by agreeing to this miai with Fuji-senpai?_

Sakuno's eyes widened with shock at the truth of his words and she stood there in stunned silence for a few moments, her mind spinning with realization as Fuji continued his way towards the school. Finally, she snapped out it and taking chase after him once again she called out, "Wait! Wait!"

Fuji stopped and waited for Sakuno to catch up with him, "What is it now, Sakuno?"

She panted for a moment at her run. She couldn't believe how quickly Fuji-senpai could walk with his long legs. She was in good shape and it had been difficult to run to catch up with him!

Putting her hands on his chest, she pleaded, "Please! Don't confront him about it! I...I...I can't. I just can't!" She started crying softly, and Fuji's anger left him.

"Sakuno...what is really the matter?" He asked gently as she sobbed into the ground, her hands grasping little bits of his coat lapels.

She moved closer to him then and whispered so softly he almost missed it, "I-I'm-I'm ruined."

Fuji immediately got angry again; furious in fact, "He did _WHAT?"_

Sakuno, realizing her mistake at his violent reaction to her words grasped onto his coat more firmly before she said, "No! It's not that! It...it was really only a kiss, I just...I can't...not with anybody else, now...because he..."

With that...Fuji finally understood.


	14. Chapter 14

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

* * *

"So...Echizen finally kissed you."

A nod.

"Now you don't think you can kiss anybody else."

Another nod, and a sob.

"So you came to break up with me because you think it's pointless."

Another sob, another nod and a hiccup.

Fuji sighed and put his hands on Sakuno's shoulders. Straightening her up so she had to look up at him he said, "I think you're being too hasty."

Sakuno blinked, "You do?"

He nodded, "Have you ever kissed anybody else?"

She shook her head.

"Then how do you know if you're ruined or not?"

Sakuno looked off to the side for a moment before she said solemnly, "I know. I just know."

"Well, I think you owe me a kiss."

Her head whipped back to him, "You what!?"

"Think about it. Don't I at least deserve a chance? You were willing to do a miai with me and not him, after all, weren't you? I can't just give you up because you have a hunch about never kissing anybody else after your first kiss."

"But-!"

"You won't really know unless you try. So it should be me."

Her jaw dropped, "Fuji-senpai!"

He leaned down towards her and said, "I thought I told you to call me Shusuke."

She flushed as he continued to move closer, but she didn't move away.

_After all...maybe he had a point...maybe she should just let him kiss her and see if it was really impossible..._

Sakuno's eyes drifted shut as Fuji closed the distance and before his lips made contact, Sakuno felt her head jerked back abruptly by one of her braids!

"Ow!"

She opened her eyes and saw Fuji-senpai's shocked face and the rounded end of a red racquet at his throat.

" _Just what do you think you're doing to my wife?!"_

"R-R-Ryoma-kun!" Sakuno stuttered in surprise. She was sure it was him, even though she couldn't see him since her back had been pulled into his chest. It was because she was already familiar with the way his arms felt when they were wrapped around her. Not to mention the red racquet, his voice, and the absurd question he'd just thrown at Fuji-senpai.

_There was only one person on earth that would be cheeky enough to refer to her as his wife and that was Echizen Ryoma, no doubt about it._

Fuji raised an eyebrow and smirked, "Ah, Echizen. I was wondering when you'd butt into this."

Ryoma pushed his racquet deeper into Fuji's neck, as Sakuno blurted out, "I'm _not_ your wife!"

Ryoma tugged down on her braid, "Hush, you."

"Ryoma-kun! We aren't married and we aren't getting married!" Sakuno insisted as she reached her hand back to try and free her poor hair.

"It seems the lady has spoken," Fuji added with a satisfied grin.

Ryoma's look darkened, and Fuji tried not to get too gleeful at the old rivalry he had with his former kohai. He hadn't expected Echizen to go so far as to put his racquet at his throat. _How very interesting._

Ryoma unconsciously yanked harder on Sakuno's braid as he wrapped it around his fist. _She was his!_ She could deny it all she wanted, but the truth was that _she liked him_ and they were getting married and _she knew it!_

"Ryoma-kun, you're hurting me," Sakuno whined.

Ryoma's grip instantly slacked. Letting her braid go he wrapped his arm around her waist and mumbled against the shell of her ear a slight apology.

Sakuno shivered as she felt his lips brush against her ear, and then noticing that Fuji had noticed her reaction to the tennis prince, she blushed and then shot him a knowing look as if to say 'SEE? Do you see what I mean? Do you _see_ what he does to me?'

Fuji raised both eyebrows and said, "Well, Sakuno? Who's it going to be? Me or Echizen?"

"What do you mean?" Sakuno asked.

"Echizen claims you're already his wife."

Sakuno blushed and muttered something.

"Hey senpai, there's no question here. Sakuno is going to marry me," Ryoma said with much more calm than expected.

"Oh? But that's not what she told me," Fuji baited.

"Fuji-senpai," Sakuno began warningly as Ryoma dropped his racquet from Fuji's throat.

Ryoma spun Sakuno around to face him and asked her in a low tone, "You told him about us?"

Sakuno bit her lip, suddenly feeling guilty for discussing her relationship with Ryoma-kun with Fuji-senpai though she didn't know why. Maybe it was the look Ryoma-kun was giving her. He looked really upset. She didn't think she'd ever seen him upset like this...well about...

…

_Them._

"At our meeting-" Sakuno began to explain softly, but Ryoma's face twisted and he grabbed at the center of his chest.

"UGH," He grunted as he bent forward slightly and took a step back from Sakuno.

"Ryoma-kun!" Sakuno shouted in alarm, "What's wrong?"

She followed him as he continued to stumble back a bit, "My-my chest hurts."

Sakuno's eyes widened with fright. What if something was seriously wrong with him? Was he having a heart attack? Was there something wrong with his lungs? What about his tennis? Could he handle something serious?

Sakuno rushed forward to him, closing the distance quicker than he could back away from her, "Ryoma-kun! Do you need to go to the doctor?"

He was panting and he threw an arm over her shoulder for support as he said, "I don't know. I've never had a pain like this before... _oh_...except..."

"Except?"

He flushed slightly as he seemed to piece together his pain. Before he could formulate a reply, Fuji approached and said, "Sakuno, I think you should take Echizen home. His parents will know what to do with him."

Sakuno turned fiery eyes towards Fuji and scolded, "Fuji-senpai! I thought you wanted to be a doctor! Don't you care at all?"

Fuji smirked and said, "I think he'll be okay. That's my future professional opinion. Take him home, Sakuno-chan. Everything will be fine."

"It will?" Sakuno asked hopefully.

Fuji pet Sakuno on the head as if she were a small child. As he passed her he put his hand on the outside of Ryoma's shoulder and said something quietly into his ear that Sakuno couldn't hear, and then he was gone.

Ryoma's eyes widened and he watched Fuji walk away in a bit of a daze at the words the slightly older man had said to him.

_No...way..._

_There's just no way..._

It didn't take long for the teens to make their way to Ryoma's house. As they arrived, they noticed nobody was home, so Sakuno slid her shoes off and took on caring for Ryoma herself. Getting him into his bed, she fussed over him a great deal before Ryoma finally got frustrated and yanked on her arm, pulling her down to sit on his bed.

"Sakuno. Calm down. I'm feeling a lot better."

Sakuno worried her lower lip between her teeth. Half of her wanted to scream out her worries and the other half of her wanted to wrap him up in her arms and somehow heal him from his pain. She had never been so scared, not even when Ryoma-kun had been hit in the eye from his broken tennis racquet when they were first years in middle school. Ryoma-kun usually barely even acknowledged pain. Seeing him earlier though had been so terrifying. The way he had grabbed at his chest and the look of pain on his face was more intense than any look she'd ever seen on him before, and she was fairly certain she knew all of his looks by now. After all, the last six years of her life she had spent being hopelessly in love with him, obsessively watching him, and spending as much time with him as possible. The look of agony on his face today had sent prickles up and down her back and made her hair stand on edge. She had so much nervous energy she didn't know what to do besides fuss over him.

She put her hand over his heart and rubbed it for a minute, "Are you really feeling better or are you just telling me that?"

He'd smirked and said, "I'm feeling better."

"You can tell me, you know. If it's serious. I'll worry either way, so don't protect me."

Ryoma placed his hand over hers and intertwined their fingers, "Sakuno. It was nothing."

She gave him a skeptical look.

"Ne...remember when my racquet hit my eye and you ran on the court to fetch me?"

Sakuno's cheeks instantly flushed at his words. Looking away from him, she pouted, before reminding him, "You yelled at me."

Ryoma snickered, "You shouldn't have been on the court."

"I know, but you were bleeding, I thought you lost your eye, I couldn't help it!"

"So if I get hurt on the ATP are you going to run on the court to save me?"

Sakuno gave him a wary look, not sure what she was supposed to say. Somehow she felt that his question was a trap and any answer at all would be the wrong one.

He yanked on her hand that was entwined with his, causing her to lose her balance and fall over on top of him, "So? Will you save me again?"

Sakuno's blush increased, "Ryoma-kun, stop playing with me!" She pushed down on his chest with her one free hand, trying awkwardly to sit back up. Ryoma pulled her down more, forcing her to slump into his chest. Now completely unable to move away, she let out a frustrated huff.

"What are you going to do, Sakuno?"

"Ryoma-kun has to make sure not to get hurt anymore," She finally mumbled.

He chuckled and agreed before adding, "I don't mind if you run on the court if I get hurt as long as you're there with me."

Sakuno's heart jumped out of her chest for a moment before it began to pound frantically. That was...so he was...

At her silence, Ryoma continued, "The Australian Open starts on your birthday. I want you to come with me."

She lifted her head up to meet his eyes. Their faces were only a few inches apart, "To Australia?"

He nodded slowly.

She looked down at his chest and asked quietly, "What about school?"

"It's just a formality."

"What do you mean?" She looked back up at him, a puzzled expression on her face.

Ryoma's mouth twisted for a moment as he tried to find the right words, "You...won't ever have to work a day in your life."

Her eyes widened, "What are you talking about?"

He grazed the side of her face with his free hand, "I make a lot of money."

Her jaw dropped open with obvious shock.

"I mean, _a lot_...and after I'm doing tennis full time on the ATP there will be so much more so you won't need to worry-"

"Ryoma-kun!"

He paused his rushed explanation. _Damn...she was mad again..._

"School is really important! What if something happened to you and you couldn't play tennis anymore?"

Ryoma grimaced, "That won't happen."

"How do you know? Your chest was hurting earlier and-"

He put his finger on her lips and Sakuno had to stop herself from the sudden urge to kiss his finger to see if he would finally kiss her again. _This was torture!_

"Let's not talk about that anymore."

"But-"

"Tell me why you were with Fuji."

_Oh._

"I, um...needed to talk to him."

Ryoma ground his teeth in frustration for a moment before he added lowly, "He had other ideas."

Sakuno frowned at his observation and nodded slightly, "I was trying to tell him the miai was off."

Ryoma froze for a second. Wait... _what miai was off? A miai with Fuji!?_ She said she was going to cancel that on Friday! "You didn't call it off last week?"

"I told Grandma to call it off, but she didn't. So I met him on Sunday."

" _He's_ the guy you didn't turn down?"

Another nod.

"Sakuno! What were you thinking? _With Fuji?"_

She bit her lip, "He wanted to try and I didn't have a reason to say no-"

_"I'm not a good enough reason to say no?"_ Ryoma interrupted angrily.

Sakuno flushed, "Ryoma-kun..."

"Don't tell me you aren't going to marry me again. We both know by now that's a load of BS."

Sakuno buried her face in his chest and decided not to comment further. If he'd been feeling better that day, and if he hadn't kissed her and found out she liked him a couple of days ago, maybe she would have protested. Now it just seemed pointless. In the end, she didn't have to sign anything...no matter what Ryoma-kun thought was going to happen. In the end, he wouldn't care because it's not like he really loved her and he'd be heartbroken over this. In the end, he would thank her someday...though she'd probably never see him again after graduation.

Ryoma released Sakuno's hand and wrapped his arms around her as she laid on top of him, her face buried under his chin in his chest. She was warm and soft. _This was nice._ Karupin had always been his cuddle buddy ever since he'd been really small, and his parents weren't very touchy people in general so he hadn't ever really known before how nice it was to feel another person's warmth until he'd started pursuing Sakuno last week. _It was really nice._ He would be very happy if she stayed this way...

After a few minutes, Sakuno lifted up her head, "I should get home. It's getting late and Grandma is going to be worried."

One corner of Ryoma's mouth dropped slightly, "Just call Granny and tell her you have to stay with me."

Sakuno gave him a wry smile, "I thought you were feeling better."

"I am."

"So why do I have to stay with you? Hmm?"

Ryoma stared into her eyes for a full minute in silence before he said, "I don't ever want you to leave my side."

Sakuno's heart squeezed painfully. _He was too much._ He shouldn't say those things to her. It was irresistible. She should have known that if he put his mind to something he would be successful at it. She'd never seen Ryoma defeated at anything, at least not for very long.

She pushed herself up off of him and got off the bed. Standing over him she shot him a hurt look, "Ryoma-kun is just trying to make me fall in love."

Ryoma smirked then, "Is it working? Are you in love with me yet?"

Sakuno's eyes turned angry before she said, "And what about Ryoma-kun?"

Ryoma raised an eyebrow, "What about me?"

Sakuno shook her head in obvious disapproval, "What about Ryoma-kun's love?"

Ryoma looked taken aback for a moment, "What?"

Sakuno could feel herself getting angrier by the minute and before she knew it she said heatedly, "You want me to love you? You want to get married? _WHAT ABOUT ME?_ What about what _I_ want? _What if I want to be LOVED!?"_ Oh my, she was yelling, and she'd just yelled at him. She froze for a moment as she took in the shell shocked look Ryoma was giving her at her outburst.

_He didn't even know what she meant, did he?_

Letting out the beginnings of a sob, Sakuno spun around quickly. She ran down the stairs faster than she'd ever moved before in her life, stuffed her feet into her shoes, and looked up as Ryoma yelled at her from the top of the stairs. Oh, oh no, he was chasing after her.

_She couldn't even hear what he said, she was so upset._

Ignoring him, she pushed the front door open, ran out of the gate and sped down the street as quickly as possible.

She _absolutely did not want_ Ryoma to catch her.


	15. Chapter 15

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

* * *

Echizen Ryoma laid on his back on his bed and glared at the ceiling. Karupin was taking a bath at his feet, and he could feel the bed move slightly with each lick the cat gave himself on the paw he was busy cleaning.

_Love._

That sure had seemed to be the topic of the day, hadn't it? First Fuji said it, then Sakuno.

He recalled the words his former senpai had whispered into his ear earlier that afternoon after he'd stopped him from kissing Sakuno.

" _You really love her, don't you?"_

Love.

Love?

LOVE.

LOVE?

_LOVE._

Just what exactly was love anyway? Why did people make such a big deal about love? He didn't get it.

He remembered when he was young, he'd asked his mother what love was and she'd told him that when you loved somebody you would die for them. He'd mulled that over in his mind for about a week before concluding that he didn't love anybody. Ever since then, he hadn't really given it much thought.

What did love have to do with his life? His life was about playing tennis, and growing up already so he could live his own life without his parents nosing into his business 24/7. The marriage with Sakuno had seemed like the most logical choice for him for a wife. He wanted to get married someday, the timing didn't really matter. Besides, if he didn't marry Sakuno, who would he marry? Nobody! All other girls were crazy, stupid, scary, silly or all of the above. _What did love have to do with that?_

According to Sakuno this afternoon... _everything._

What was up with that anyway? Screaming at him about how he has to love her! She'd never said anything so silly to him in all their time of knowing each other. The great thing about Sakuno was that she _didn't_ really say silly things, not like how other girls did. Not that she wasn't kind of clueless sometimes, but he'd always sort-of enjoyed teasing her about that and watching her get more confused. Silliness on the other hand was different.

So why make such a big deal about such a silly thing? Something he didn't even understand. Something that wasn't really important to him. It wasn't his idea that she had to love him for them to get married, that had been _her_ idea, the silly woman. Now she was going to go and throw that on him as well?

He scoffed under his breath and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

Then there was Fuji. _What was up with that?_ Saying he really loved Sakuno into his ear after he'd practically taken his head off for trying to kiss her. So getting violent over protecting what's yours was now called love? Was that what Fuji thought love meant? What about dying for people like his mom had told him? Was it such a subjective word that it was up to each person to define it? That just made no sense.

So then, if everybody had their own definition of love, then what was Sakuno's definition? Hers was the one that really mattered, right? He couldn't get her to agree to their marriage unless there was love.

He groaned at the thought of it.

Since when had his life turned into this emotional teenage love drama? Where he was told to have _feelings_ and then thought about things like _feelings_. It was so emo...throwing around words like _love._

He didn't like it. Not one bit. It wasn't him. _Not at all._

So what? Sakuno was asking him to change for her? Really? He never expected she would be that sort of a female.

Though...she hadn't really said anything about changing at all. In fact, she still persisted on turning him down.

So was that because she didn't think he loved her? Was that her real problem?

Wait.

Ryoma sat up abruptly as his mind burst with epiphany. Karupin's bathing paused. His cat shot him an annoyed look before jumping off the bed where he resumed his cat bath.

Wait.

But...

But...

_WAIT._

_Had she finally told him the truth on why she wouldn't marry him?_

Was it really as simple now as all he had to do was tell her that he loved her and then they could get on with the rest of their lives?

He fantasized about telling her that he did love her. A smile would burst forth on her face and then he would lean over and kiss her again. Kiss those forbidden lips that he'd held back from kissing for fear that he would push her to do more than she was ready for just yet. He'd ask her to marry him again, and this time she'd say yes. Then he'd kiss her again, and allow himself to start touching her. He'd rub his hands up her arms and down her back. He'd wrap his fingers around her hips before pulling her body flush into contact with his.

He took a gasping breath to stop himself from moaning aloud. He could swear he just felt every curve of her soft little body pressed into him.

_It would be heaven..._

All he had to do was get her to say yes. She just didn't seem to want to say yes, no matter how much he did to try to get her to give in, she was fighting him every step of the way. Today, she'd even looked like she was going to let that bastard Fuji kiss her!

He grabbed at his chest and flopped back against his pillow as the now familiar pain stabbed through him.

UGH. _What was up this infernal chest pain?_ Why did it only come up when Sakuno was around or he was thinking about her not marrying him?

Waitaminute.

He'd been grasping his chest in pain when Fuji had told him that he loved Sakuno.

There's no way it was connected, right? Or was it really possible that it was...? Could it be that having this stabbing pain in your chest like you were going to die or pass out any second meant... _love?_

If so, why was love so painful? Wasn't it supposed to be a good thing?

_So did he really love Sakuno?_

Did that mean he would die for her too?

There was just...no...way...right?

He didn't love anybody. He'd never loved anybody.

He loved tennis. It was the only thing he would die for.

So why did his chest hurt so damn much?

* * *

Thursday morning, Sakuno woke up extra early. _She needed to avoid Ryoma-kun no matter what._ There was just no getting around the fact that she'd screamed at him yesterday afternoon that he needed to love her.

Oh, how utterly embarrassing was that? _What had she been thinking?_ Saying those things to Ryoma-kun! It was a wonder he hadn't burst out laughing at her and called her a silly girl!

Rushing through her morning routine, she packed up a light lunch in her bento box, didn't bother to braid her hair, and skipped breakfast all together in her hurry to get out the door.

Opening up the front door Sakuno was dismayed to see Ryoma leaning against her front gate.

_What was he doing at her house so early?_

She abruptly turned around to go back inside the house. _Forget it, she would call in sick today, preparing for finals next week be damned._

She was about to step back inside when an arm wrapped around her waist, "What are you doing?"

She shivered as he whispered his question into her ear. _Did he have to do that? Did he have to grab her and talk to her so...so...so..._

Even though she was beyond embarrassed being around him at the moment, the second she'd felt his body pressed up behind her and smelled him, she'd wanted to spin around and kiss him like the end of the world was upon them.

"Ry-Ryoma-kun," She stuttered out before berating herself incessantly for stuttering in front of him. She was _much too old_ for that, thankyouverymuch! "Good morning."

She felt his mouth ghost against the shell of her ear, "Good morning."

She shivered again. She wanted him so badly it was painful. It should really be illegal to be as sexy as Ryoma-kun. Needing space before she did something reprehensible and embarrassing, she turned around and placed her palms against his chest, pushing him away.

"You wore your hair down again," He said as he stepped off the porch and motioned for her to follow him.

_Wow...he actually noticed something like how she did her hair..._

"Ah...un, I didn't have much time."

Ryoma looked at his cell phone for a second, "You were out here much earlier than usual."

Sakuno sent a pout his way, "Mou, Ryoma-kun. How early do you get here every day?"

He sent her an overly smug smirk, "That's a secret."

She closed the gate behind them and he grasped her now chilled fingers in his warm hand as they began to walk towards their school.

_How was it that he was always so warm, even in this cold weather?_

"It's hard to believe we only have one more set of finals after this and then school will be over forever," Sakuno said as she thought about what they'd be doing in class that day.

"Un."

"Are you ready for the finals, Ryoma-kun?"

A shrug, "If not, I'll pick it up this weekend when we study."

"Oh that's right, we're going to study all weekend, aren't we? So do you want to come over to my house or should I go over to your place?"

She marveled for about the one millionth time that she'd known Ryoma-kun at how easy it really was to be around him, even after embarrassing yourself horribly. Every time she thought she'd never be able to live something down, she'd been met with this cool as a cucumber person. He was like a duck! Everything rolled off of his back! It was actually a pretty amazing talent.

"Hmm...your house. My parents will be home all weekend. We'll get nothing done there."

Sakuno laughed at that, knowing Ryoma was perfectly right. She'd been in the presence of Uncle enough times to know that he couldn't resist teasing, or watching everything the two of them did every time they were together and he was around. For that reason, the two of them had usually opted to spend time together where ever Ryoma's papa wasn't going to be.

"Uncle never changes."

Ryoma made a grunt of general displeasure at that before he stopped walking.

Sakuno paused at the pull of his hand and looked at him, wondering why he'd halted their progress.

"You want to get some breakfast?" He asked, his eyes drifting to a small restaurant across the street.

"Okay," She replied, knowing there was more than enough time with how early she'd left her house that morning. After all, what would they do getting to school so early?

Ryoma led the way across the street where they were promptly seated. Within minutes they'd placed their orders and were sipping on their hot teas.

Ryoma sat back in his chair and gazed across the table at Sakuno. She had her eyes pointed out the window, and he could see them dancing around as they took in everything going on outside. She was really too pretty for her own good when she left her hair down like this. Maybe he needed to rethink the whole idea of Sakuno not being a female he'd need to keep a constant eye on. After all, Fuji seemed to have pursued her earnestly enough to try to steal a kiss from her.

He really didn't want to ever see something like that again. How to keep other men away from her though? At school, it was one thing since everybody kind-of assumed they were together and nobody at school ever messed with him. At least, not now that he was a senior, and therefore all his senpai from the tennis team that would be comfortable enough to challenge him were well and gone from school.

That wouldn't help him out in the world though. Not a bit.

Though...

His eyes drifted down from her hair to her left hand. Her fingers were currently curled around the warm mug filled with steaming hot tea. They were bare at the present, but if they were married...

What kind of wedding ring would Sakuno want? Would it be big and flashy, or small and delicate? Would she want two bands, or just one? Would she want a clear diamond or a colored one? Would she want a diamond? Some girls preferred other stones, didn't they? Would she want a gold band or a platinum one? Which did she prefer? What size was she? When would she want to buy them? Was she one of those girls that knew what kind of ring she'd wanted since she was little, or would she not care much?

He moved his head down and looked at his own left hand for a moment, marveling at it. What would it be like to be married? Not just the obvious benefits, but the smaller changes like this. What would it be like to wear a wedding band all the time? Would it interfere with his tennis? Would he get used to it? Would he have to take it off for matches?

Suddenly the whole idea of marriage, and children, and being grown up slammed into him with full force.

Part of him was afraid, but the larger part of him was excited.

The rest of their lives were starting now.


	16. Chapter 16

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

* * *

Early Saturday morning, right after breakfast time, Sakuno saw her Grandmother off for her spa day and noticed Ryoma was already on her doorstep. She greeted him with a yawn, still feeling insanely tired over the lack of sleep she'd been getting all week. _It was all this thinking she was doing over and over and over again about Ryoma-kun and the miai._

As he stepped over the threshold and kicked his shoes off, Sakuno saw them in a different setting. They weren't at her Grandmother's house, they were at their own house. Ryoma was getting home...he would kick his shoes off before leaning over to kiss her. She'd have dinner ready and...

"Sakuno? What are you doing?"

Startled from her fantasy, Sakuno turned around to see Ryoma already standing in her living room. He was giving her an odd look.

_Oh..._

_Too bad, she was really hoping today would finally bring more kissing._ A sweet peck in greeting would have been enough, for at least a little while. Instead, she got nothing.

_It had been nothing all week._

He wouldn't let her kiss anybody else, (not that she wanted to) but couldn't he at least kiss her again after all that? She was really starting to worry he'd never kiss her again.

Sakuno restrained herself from looking at him as she brushed past him on her way into the living room, "I have everything all set up. Snacks, drinks, all the books we'll need, paper, pens, pencils..." She stopped and waved her arms towards the kotatsu where everything was laid out neatly, ready for them to begin studying.

Ryoma smirked as he eased himself onto the floor. He set his backpack down next to him and began to pull his own supplies out, setting them down on the kotatsu surface, "Sit."

Sakuno smiled wryly as she followed his command, and sat down next to him. Soon enough they were delved into their books, reviewing all the material they'd learned that term.

For about the sixth time (and really, it had only been an hour) Ryoma pushed into her side with his pencil before he pointed at something, "Do you know this?"

She took a deep breath of his wonderful scent as it wafted into her airspace and turned her head towards him. His eyes flickered up from the paper to her eyes, same as they had every time before.

_Kiss me._

She could feel herself moving her head slightly closer towards him.

_Please._

Just as every time before it, Ryoma's left eyebrow quirked up at her, "Sakuno?"

Right...

She turned her face away from him and downward towards the paper. She watched the writing swim around before her eyes for a moment.

 _Why wouldn't he just kiss her!?_ Calm down. Calm down. As she finally was able to make sense of the text, she would nod. A couple of times, she'd shaken her head, and then learned nothing at all as she'd watched him explain it to her.

_Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me._

Part of her hoped he would hear her plea and give in to her mantra. The other part of her was happy he couldn't read her mind, because surely, she could never live it down if he knew what she was thinking...

Not that it had been all that different from every other finals study session they'd ever done. It was just that this time it was different.

_She knew what it felt like...and she desperately wanted more._

After lunch, Ryoma sent a serious look her way before he pulled a folded paper out of his his backpack and set it down in front of her.

Sakuno stared at it. _What was this? Why was he giving it to her?_ Had Ryoma-kun made some master sheet of everything they needed to know for finals? If so, why hadn't he shared it first thing this morning?

"Ne, Ryoma-kun, what's this?" She asked as she grabbed the edges and began to open up the large folds.

He didn't say anything, so she looked away from him and back down at the paper, opening it up. Her eyes began to scan over the page, taking in the seals, the boxes, the handwriting...

_Whhhhhhaaaaa..._

This...this was...

Her head snapped up to look at him, her eyes wide. She quickly folded it back up and tried to hand it back to him.

His hand closed over hers and pushed it back towards her, "I want you to keep it. Next week on my birthday, it will be valid. All you need to do is fill in your portion and mail it in."

"Ryoma-kun I ca-"

"As far as I'm concerned, it's done."

"But-!"

"I want us to go to the US during winter break to buy a house, so the sooner the better."

"A house? Wha-"

"We won't have enough time after graduation before heading to Monte Carlo for the Rolex Masters. Buying a house in America takes at least a month, generally a little longer than that. If we don't do it now, we won't have a place to come home to between tournaments, and we probably won't have the time to buy one until September after the US Open."

Sakuno blinked at his bombardment of information before she said, "Ryoma-kun, I can't leave Grandma."

Ryoma frowned, "What do you mean? Granny _wants_ you to get married."

Sakuno shook her head, "I don't think she meant she wanted me leaving the country. Who will take care of her?"

"She doesn't need to be taken care of yet, Sakuno."

"I can't keep an eye on her from America," She shook her head, "Like I keep telling you, this is never going to work."

Ryoma's eyes narrowed with irritation. _She was so stubborn!_ Is this really what it's like being married? That it's impossible to make a decision without fighting about it?

"That's what phones are for, right?"

"I need to keep an eye on her. I can't do that over the phone."

"Fine. Granny can come with us."

"Then she'll be left alone in a foreign country while we're away most of the time for the ATP. How is that better than being here in Tokyo? Besides, what about her job at the school?"

"What do _you_ want to do?"

Sakuno spread her arms wide, "I want to keep living here, of course."

"Yada."

Sakuno tried to hand the paper back to him again.

He grasped it and it crumbled under the ferocity of how quickly he grabbed it and then shoved it back towards her, "I told you, it's already done for me."

"Mou."

"I guess we can buy some property here and have a house built for us, but you know that will take time, even with a guarantor. Not to mention having my parents sign on as guarantors will keep us under their heavy influence until I turn 20 in two years."

"Ryoma-kun, I'll be perfectly happy here with Grandma."

He moved towards her until their faces were an inch apart. Putting his hand that was closest to her in the juncture of her hip and her thigh he asked darkly, "Even for this?"

Sakuno's heart began racing a million beats a minute. They were finally talking about it, _sort-of._ Lowering her eyes down to his lips she said quietly, with a slight hint of accusation, "You kissed me on Monday."

The left corner of his mouth rose at her comment, but he offered no reply.

Finally, she whispered, "Ever since-"

Before she could finish her thought, he'd closed the small distance between their mouths and kissed her for the second time. _This time she was ready._ She opened to him right away and moved herself closer, pushing his hand further into the crease of her skirt. Within seconds her arms were wrapped around his neck, making the most of things.

Everything happened so quickly, Ryoma didn't even realize what had happened as his body had followed along with Sakuno's slight prompts. Soon enough she was laid on the floor underneath him as his hands roved freely over her body.

It was...it was...something, he couldn't think...

It wasn't until Sakuno's voice began urgently whispering into his ear that he started to realize what was happening. He could hear her talking into his ear, her voice asking him a question over and over again, but he couldn't...what? What did she say?

He pulled away from her mouth and glanced down at her while asking again, but paying attention for her answer this time, "What?"

She flushed as she bit her lip. Her eyes turned down, looking away from him. He followed their path and took in her almost bare form, this time realizing her state of undress. How had...? He looked down at his own bare chest and his eyes widened. _It was just as he'd feared..._

Now she was going to tell him that she never wanted to see him again, right? She was probably telling him to stop, wasn't she? He looked down at her again, taking in deep breaths, trying desperately to calm his frantically beating heart.

_She was so beautiful..._

"What did you say?" He asked again between breaths since she still hadn't replied yet.

He watched as her whole body turned red with a sort of fascination before she finally said so quietly he could barely hear her, "I was asking Ryoma-kun if he had, um..." She paused and turned a darker shade of red before she mumbled even quieter still, "Protection."

His mouth opened slightly, his look obvious that he was surprised, though only if you actually knew what Ryoma's surprised look was. Sakuno knew what his surprised look was, so she didn't miss a beat. Embarrassed at his surprise, she began to awkwardly cover herself.

 _Had it really gotten so far?_ He looked over her form again and took in where his left hand was still resting before he felt his own cheeks warm slightly.

She was...she was...

He shook his head that he did not as he said teasingly, "Don't you think it's about time you drop the honorific?"

She'd blinked up at him with surprised eyes as he'd smirked down at her. Removing his hand from her, he pulled her back up to a sitting position. He rocked back onto his knees and watched as she began to slowly put her clothes back on.

As she completed her task, she looked over at him, which caused him to snap out of his daze. He grabbed his shirt and slipped it back over his head, and then redid the buckle of his pants.

Flushing again, he watched her roll the corner of one of her papers between her thumb and forefinger as she said, "Maybe...tomorrow...we can get..."

Now, more surprised than he thought he'd ever been in his life, _(how did it turn out that she was so willing to do everything and he wasn't)_ Ryoma shot her a warning look, "Not yet."

Her eyes had lifted then, meeting his, "Why?"

He closed his eyes for a moment before he said, "It's not done for you yet."

"What's not d-? _Oh,"_ She realized what he meant as he'd nodded towards the document he'd handed her earlier.

It was true...on paper, Ryoma already considered himself her husband.

On the other hand, she hadn't fulfilled the same promise in writing of being his wife.

So that meant...

"It has to be done first," He said firmly.

Sakuno nodded her head slowly, in wonder over Echizen Ryoma's character yet again. So he was really like...and that meant that she didn't have to worry about...


	17. Chapter 17

**Decisions**

By: Bunny

Rated: T

Genre: Romance / Friendship

Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.

Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to **Cookie** , my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

* * *

She loved him.

There was no doubt about it. Finally, he was sure of it. He was sure he was sure of it. He was sure that he was sure of his future. It would definitely include Sakuno. Sure, he'd talked a big talk, and walked a big walk the last two weeks, but it had proved true.

Ryuzaki Sakuno was in love with him.

So...they would get married.

After all, that's what she'd said, right?

He knew Sakuno better than many gave him credit for. Perhaps many didn't credit him because he hadn't realized all these years his feelings of liking her were reciprocated until after he'd finally made a decision about their relationship and told her. The truth though, was that he paid a great deal of attention to her, especially considering that she was a girl. Now that he was thinking about it these past two weeks, he probably had more little facts tucked away inside of his mind about Sakuno than any other person he knew.

_Shocking..._

But...seeing as how he knew her so well, he was sure...

That afternoon as he sat in the old lady's house under her kotatsu after almost...

_He'd realized what it all meant._

Sakuno loved him. She would never do these things with anybody else. He was sure of it. She'd never suggest something like she had...

Just thinking about it made him ache with need and want. He groaned at how he'd gone and enforced on her that she had to sign the marriage certificate first.

It was just...he didn't want to be anything like his old man. That meant that there would be one woman that would...and it would be his wife. Which honestly meant it would be Sakuno. After everything that's happened the last two weeks, if she didn't marry him for some reason, he'd never marry.

It had to be her.

So why had he stopped?

It was selfish, right? That he wanted... _everything._

He wanted everything _now_ and if she wasn't ready to give him everything now, then he couldn't...

So now what should he do? She said she would marry him if she loved him. She loved him. He'd given her the marriage document to sign and stamp that afternoon.

If she filled it in, he'd be as good as married tomorrow, and officially married when the family registry received their registration, at the earliest being this weekend when he turned 18.

That would be...perfect.

If she didn't fill it out right away though...then what?

It had been a bit of a pain getting it filled out for her too. She had no idea what he had to go through to get it signed by his parents.

When he'd first offered the paper to his parents, his mother had beamed her happiness at him. As she'd ran from the room to get the family stamp, his father had given him a serious look and said, "We need to talk."

Ryoma had nodded, wondering what his father could possibly have to say about it. After all, he'd told them the miai with Sakuno was back on. His parents had been super approving when they'd presented her to him as his arranged marriage partner. So what could it be?

His mother had returned and his parents had both signed the document and stamped it without further ado. Then, his old man had squeezed his shoulder for him to get up and they'd left the dinner table. Walking up to Ryoma's room, his father had closed the door behind them before smirking slightly.

That was just never a good look from his old man it always meant...

And it certainly had. For the next twenty minutes his father after opening with, 'You'll thank me for this kid,' had proceeded to explain to him in detail exactly what he needed to do. That is, exactly what he needed to do to make sure his lovely virginal wife enjoyed herself the first time instead of having him hurt her.

Most of him wanted to wash his mind clean. The horrors of being educated on such a thing from your old man. The horrors of knowing many a virgin must have been deflowered by his old man for him to know so much. Then there was the small little part of him that had stored away the important points that he probably would be grateful that he'd be able to please her so thoroughly on an experience that by reputation many women didn't particularly enjoy.

So if she loved him and she had the marriage document and that still didn't have them married soon, he'd need to do something. After this afternoon, he had no doubt that it would be at least a million times harder to not give in and just enjoy her as soon as possible.

After all, she was _surprisingly willing._

Which meant that she loved him.

He wondered if he'd had a permanently goofy grin on his face ever since he'd realized that she loved him. He felt like he had a goofy grin on his face. He felt like the world belonged to him. He felt invincible.

Their Sunday finals study session proved to be the beginning of a completely new phase in their relationship. One in which neither of them minded at all, excepting for the constant frustrations of holding back.

Ryoma had been discouraged to discover in the morning that she hadn't filled out the marriage license yet. Really? After everything they'd done yesterday afternoon, she still wasn't convinced? _Did she not know that she loved him?_

Instead of studying, they spent most of the day kissing and exploring each other. Unlike the previous afternoon, they were both more cognizant of how far things were going, and held back from getting to the same point they had before, but other than that...

They couldn't get enough of each other.

It was the worst timing too for them to decide on such a change in their relationship. The start of finals week. Instead of their heads being filled with facts, formulas and words, they were filled with each other.

Beginning with Monday at school things had changed the most. They didn't seem to be able to leave the classroom even for a brief recess, without one or the other cornering the other person in a storage closet, or an empty classroom, or empty corridor where they would come together in an attempt the sate the desires that they weren't going to complete yet anyways.

Sakuno, for her part had the marriage license constantly burning up inside of her. She kept it by her side at all times. Caressing the slight bumps in the paper from the writing on the one side of the document, she would gaze at it in contemplative wonder for what felt like hours on end. Would she really marry Ryoma-kun? Would she really travel around the world with him for who knew how many years for the ATP? Was this really, really happening?

Then she would remember how wonderful it had been on Saturday. How she'd been waiting and waiting all week. Would he kiss her again? Wouldn't he? And then...finally...it had happened. It had been magic, it had been wonder, it had been just as breathtakingly earth shattering as the first time he'd kissed her and before she'd even realized what was happening, she'd found herself almost completely unclothed laying underneath him on the floor there of her Grandmother's living room, asking him if he had protection on him.

AS IF Ryoma-kun would have had protection on him! Neither of them had ever done a single thing before their first kiss on Monday, so why would either of them have suspected that things would escalate so far so quickly?

Was it just one of those things that happened to some couples or was it a Ryoma and Sakuno special? Was it a good thing or a bad thing? Did that mean they were crazy in love with each other or did it mean they just had some sort of physical chemical reaction that combusted upon contact?

She didn't know, but she needed to. She simply had no experience on how to know.

Ryoma-kun might have filled out their marriage certificate and begun to make lots of plans for their future together, but all that she kept thinking about was how _he hadn't told her that he loved her._ He hadn't told her that he wanted to marry her because he loved her.

No matter that he already filled out the marriage license, no matter how amazing the kissing was, and no matter how much she really did want it all in her heart of hearts...

Without him being in love with her...

_It still just couldn't work._

It just wasn't a good idea to marry him when she loved him so much and he didn't love her back. It was a recipe for disaster...

In the meantime...kissing him and touching him at every single opportunity they had was amazing. She planned to keep doing that for as long as possible, until she figured out what was going on, or until Ryoma-kun got sick of her and chased her away and thus broke her heart forever.

On Wednesday afternoon, their finals were over and their final winter break of high school had officially begun. Ryoma received many well-wishes for the Australian Open that was coming up since nobody would see him again until after the tournament. His classmates now expected it since it had happened every year since he'd been fourteen...that is, that he'd be gone much longer than everyone else for winter break since the Australian Open began just as school was getting back in session.

It was always a strange tournament for him too because of the drastic change of climate. He would go from winter in Tokyo, to the peak of summer in Australia. That close to the south pole, the days were ridiculously long. He could never quite put his finger on if he liked it or not, but this year he was pretty excited for the tournament.

This year would be unlike all the others. Sakuno would be with him. She would be with him for the first time. He was going to make sure of it. He was going to convince her to go with him, and marry him, once and for all. It had been days since he'd given her the marriage license and that they had started all the kissing and touching and...

It was time to do something else. She needed to fill out that license. He was going to be eighteen in a couple of days! Time was running out. Why hadn't she filled it out yet? Did she need yet another push?

So on Thursday morning, he set about his master plan of making it all happen. After breakfast, he headed to his room, where he got on his computer and began searching the internet for perfection.

It had to be perfect, but he was feeling like he didn't even know where to begin. Not sure where to start, he typed out "wedding rings" in his search box. Within a second his computer screen was filled with links, images and ads in the search engine and he instantly felt overwhelmed with the task ahead of him.

How was he to have any idea what to get for her?

A knock sounded on his door before it opened up. His father's head popped into the room, "Seishounen! What are you doing? It's a beautiful day, you should be up on the hill, or heading to the public courts! The Australian Open is in two weeks! Practice! Practice! I don't know why I still have to tell you this."

Ryoma turned around and glared at his old man willing him with mind control to GO AWAY.

"Hey! What's that?" His father asked instead as he steadily moved into Ryoma's room.

Ryoma tried to close his browser before his old man could get a closer look, but it was too late.

"Oh, I see why you're skipping out on practice...looking for a ring for the wife?" He asked.

Ryoma grudgingly nodded his head.

"Any luck?"

Ryoma shook his head. He'd barely started, that was for sure, but he just didn't have a clue about these things...

His old man quirked an eyebrow and said, "Well kid, wedding rings are easy if you have the money like you do."

Ryoma tried not to get his hopes up too much. He wouldn't put it past his old man to be messing with him as he tended to do on things that were important to him, but with Sakuno, his old man had been surprisingly supportive so far...

"Go to Tiffany's."

"Tiffany's?" Ryoma repeated and as the name left his mouth, his mind was flooded with years of American movies, commercials and advertisements he'd seen growing up there. Even the building in New York near their property came to mind and he realized that his old man was right. There was something about girls and Tiffany & Co.

"I'm sure there are plenty of them here in Tokyo. I'd try Ginza."

Ryoma allowed himself to send his old man a slight smile of gratitude, but didn't have to live it down since his old man's back was already out the door.

Ryoma did a quick search again for Tiffany & Co. and noticed that his old man had been correct about Ginza. Adding the address into his cell phone he promptly closed down his computer. He grabbed his wallet, stuffed his phone in his pocket, donned his new leather jacket, and left.

Arriving in Ginza about an hour later, he made his way off the subway and walked towards the tall building that had the large Tiffany & Co. sign on the front. He was surprised that it wasn't all that different looking from the Tiffany & Co. building he used to walk past on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan when he'd been younger. Although, granted when he'd been younger he couldn't have cared less about a jewelry store, no matter how big it was.

Six years later, and the store suddenly seemed like such an important milestone in his life. It was just one of those things...those things that everybody did at some point in their life. Buy wedding rings...get married...

He'd always assumed at some time in his life he would find himself going to buy a wedding ring for some girl, he just never thought it would really be happening...and here it was...really happening. It felt so grown up...

Making his way through the impressively large doorway, his eyes scoped around the room and took in all the general splendor. He'd become somewhat accustomed to the opulent surroundings that the store had over his years of playing tennis professionally. It wasn't really his cup of tea, but as a professionally ranked player, even though he wasn't full time on the ATP, he'd had plenty of black tie galas to attend for the four main grand slam events he participated in each year.

He suddenly felt slightly under dressed and then realized that was silly. Approaching one of the glass cases, he peered into its contents. Jewels sparkled back at him.

Wow...they _were_ really pretty...no wonder girls liked these things so much.

"Can I help you?"

Ryoma turned to the voice that had addressed him and noticed a middle aged man that seemed to be a sales representative.

Might as well get on with the show...

"I'm here to get some wedding rings..."

The man had smiled kindly, "I see. If you'd like to follow me we can go through our engagement ring selection."

"Un."

An hour later, Ryoma had seen more rings than he'd ever cared to see in his life. He still didn't feel like he had a clue what to buy for Sakuno either.

"Which ones do you like?" His sales rep asked him.

He didn't know what to say. They all looked pretty. Some of them were maybe too big for a delicate girl like Sakuno, but beyond that, he didn't have a clue. Would she want a round diamond or a heart diamond or a square diamond? Would she want more diamonds on the side or only one in the middle? There were simply too many choices. Why couldn't this be easy?

From the corner of his eye he caught the brisk movements of someone approaching. Turning towards them, he noticed it was a girl, and she was grinning at him.

_Oh, please no..._

"You're Echizen Ryoma-sama aren't you?" She asked.

Ryoma put on a blank look and gave a slight nod.

She did a couple of little jumps of excitement there on the spot, and Ryoma wanted to leave. _This was just..._

"I love watching you play tennis! You're so amazing! I can't wait for the Australian Open! I can't believe you're here. I mean, I heard you lived in Tokyo, but I never imagined seeing you in person! You're even cuter than on the television. Although that one ad you did for the-"

"Suzuki-san, get a hold of yourself. This is highly unacceptable," His sales rep chastised the younger woman.

Ryoma's eyes widened a bit with realization. So this girl worked here too...

The girl instantly flushed red with obvious embarrassment, "Oh, but I'm so sorry, I didn't mean...I was just so excited to recognize you."

His sales rep turned to look at him and said, "I do apologize Echizen-san for my subordinate, she acts as if we never have celebrities in here."

Ryoma's mouth quirked up slightly at being referred to as a celebrity. He watched as his rep shooed away the young woman.

Wait...

"Oi!" Ryoma suddenly called out to her retreating back.

She turned around, "Yes, Ryoma-sama?"

He pulled his cell phone out and handed it over to her as she walked back over to them.

"This is my girlfriend, what kind of ring will she like?"

She took the phone from him, with a slight bow and then looked at the picture of Sakuno for a minute. Handing the phone back to Ryoma she asked, "What kind of ring are you looking for?"

"Wedding."

"Oh! _You're getting married?_ But aren't you very young? I thought I read somewhere you're still in high school?"

Ryoma frowned as his sales rep said warningly, "Suzuki-san."

"Oh! I apologize again, ano..."

"I'm turning eighteen this weekend," Ryoma said, deciding to cut the slightly older than him woman a break.

She shook her head, "Your girlfriend is very pretty."

Ryoma nodded his thanks. Well, so much for getting help from this annoying girl...

"She doesn't wear any jewelry, so she'll probably prefer a simple design like our classic Tiffany setting or the Lucida. I would recommend a solitaire, perhaps with smaller stones set into the band such as this Tiffany Novo setting if you want a little more than just a plain band and a stone. Anything more than this might be too much for her right now. Do you have an idea of what carat size you're looking for?"

Ryoma looked at the three bands the woman had showed him and imagined them on Sakuno's finger. Surprisingly, they all seemed like they would work for her. She wasn't half bad at helping with the ring after all...

"What do you think?" Ryoma asked her.

A couple of hours later, and the three of them had the ring all planned out. Ryoma was not thrilled to learn that it would take 2 weeks for the ring to be ready. Due to the holidays interfering with the process, they wouldn't have it completed until the day before he was leaving for Australia. How inconvenient...

Suzuki-san walked with him to the door and began gushing once more now that the business was concluded and her superior was occupied with finalizing the papers for the ring order.

"It's a shame you're getting married, if you were just a little bit older, I would eat you up."

Ryoma grimaced. _This was exactly what he hated about girls, the way they talked to him was so..._

Reaching the entrance, he put on his tennis superstar mode as he said, "Thank you for your help today. My wife will be really happy."

"Your wife? I thought you said she was your girlfriend? It's not already done is it?"

Ryoma shrugged, "I filled out the family registry and gave it to her last weekend, but she hasn't..."

Suzuki-san gasped in obvious shock, "She hasn't accepted you yet? I can't believe that! I mean, any girl would be happy to have you. You're so perfect."

Ryoma smirked, "It will be fine. She loves me, and soon I'll have a ring."

"Oh, I see, so you think she wants the ring?"

Ryoma shrugged, "It can't hurt."

He watched as Suzuki-san blushed, "Well, Ryoma-sama...any woman will say yes to you, even without that beautiful ring you just bought."

Ryoma looked down the street towards the subway station and wondered how it was he was still talking with this silly woman. Was it because he was hoping she'd know somehow what he needed to do to get Sakuno to marry him already? She obviously worked with couples getting married all the time. _What was the secret?_

"Sakuno is different from other girls."

Suzuki-san shook her head, "I'm sure she isn't _that_ different. We all want the same thing: for a prince to say, 'I love you so much it makes me crazy. Please make me the happiest man alive and marry me.'" With that, she broke into a fit of nervous giggles.

Ryoma quirked an eyebrow... _hmmm..._

With a wave over his shoulder, he proceeded down the street back towards the subway station to go home.


End file.
